Almost Lover
by Book2romantic
Summary: Let's face it. There's only one thing worse than being in love with a best friend that you can not, and will not date. And that is... OCC,AU,All human.
1. Introduction

**Author's Note: This is a reposting of a story from Shaps account. She seems a bit awol, and Edward asked me to take over. So any readers of the previous version, you know the drill. Edward and Bella will be fielding questions and responding to reviews, for those of you with no idea what I'm talking about.**

One week. It had only been one week that we had been apart, and we had talked online every night. I closed my eyes and scooted slightly closer to her, so that my face was pressed against the crook of her neck. Her hair was spread out on the pillow under us, and I was totally surrounded by her. The slightly strawberry smell of her hair. The sound of her breathing. The smoothness of her skin under my lips. I felt her hand running through my hair.

"It's too short now," she said, sighing quietly.

"It was way too long before," I murmured into her. I had gone all last semester without getting it cut, and had spent the last month trying to keep it out of my eyes. I admit that I liked it long enough that she could tangle her fingers up in it, but I hated it when it got in my face. I'd finally gotten it cut over the break. Now her fingers slid right through it, even if she tried to twist them around.

She scooted down so that her face was level with mine, and I opened my eyes to meet her beautiful brown ones. I was never sure which part of her I liked best. Her eyes called to me, nobody saw them like I did, but I felt like her hair was actually the most beautiful part of her. And her neck was my favorite part to touch. It felt so intimate for some reason.

"I missed you, Bella" I said, laying one arm across her.

"I missed you too," she said, smiling at my admission. I closed my eyes again, hoping to drift off to sleep for a bit. I never slept well anymore unless I was around her, and I was exhausted from the week apart. Not that I wasn't exhausted most of the time.

I heard a buzzing from the desk that was at the foot of her bed. I growled a bit as she sat up, reaching for her cell phone. I propped myself up so that I could read the text message over her shoulder.

_I'm in Tyler's room, _it read.

I watched her type out and send her response. _Why didn't you call me? Jerk. I'm in my room._

I sighed again after she folded the phone closed. She didn't say anything back to me. Just laid her head onto my chest, right over my heart. I put my arms around her as I lay back down on her bed. After a moment, she sat back up. I followed suit, and we each turned opposite ways on the bed, me toward the mini-fridge by the bay window in her room; her towards the door that feeds from her double into the hallway and the rest of our dorm, as the doorknob to her room turned.

"Hey Jake," Bella said, walking into her boyfriend's arms.

"Hey babe," he responded. He noticed me getting food out of the fridge. "Oh, hey Ed."

"Hey Jake," I said, picking out a cheese stick and tearing open the plastic. "How was your spring break?"

"It was pretty good. I just went back home and saw some old friends. How was yours?"

_Let's see. I went home, because I just started speaking to my family again after about six months of refusing their calls. I spent most of it getting lectured about how I was screwing up my life. I finally stopped speaking to my depressed ex girlfriend of two years, who had been the total focus of my life for about five years. I didn't have any old friends to hang out with. And my plane was delayed both ways, resulting in me spending a fun night in an airport. Twice._ "It was ok. Boring."

"Yeah, I know what you mean. There's only so much home I can take anymore," he said, keeping his arm around Bella's waist. She smiled up at him. They made a cute couple in their contrast. He was tall, brawny, and dark, while she was shorter, slim, and as pale as one would expect from someone who had just finished a winter in Chicago. Even though she had just got back from visiting her mother in Jacksonville.

I liked Jacob, he was a nice guy, and that was what she needed. A nice calm normal relationship. But I felt like it was really awkward when all three of us hung out, so...

"I'm gonna go check out who's in the lounge," I said, casually taking a bite out of my cheese stick. "See ya around."

They parted from where they had been standing in front of the door to let me pass, and I threw a smile back at them as I left. I was still smiling as I made my way through the concrete hallway of our dorm to the lounge, a huge common room that had a shared TV, couches and tables galore, and a kitchen are for everyone who lived on our floor. Bella really seemed happy with Jacob. I was glad that she had found someone she could be happy with, especially after her last boyfriend. I looked around the room. People were chatting with each other over what they had done during break, or playing games or working on chemistry together. I was the only one with nobody. I sighed. I needed more friends than just Bella and her roommate Alice, who wasn't back yet. I mean, I am happy that Bella found someone, but now I don't have anyone to hang out with.

Plus, I'm completely in love with her.


	2. Girlfriend

**Responses from Edward:**

**Orangemonkey36: Well, they should get posted pretty quickly for the first few chapters. It might slow down eventually. Honestly, Bella can probably dictate how quickly this whole thing happens (her penname on here is 18forks).**

**Lady Dragona: I think Shaps just went and found a life. And lying in bed together like we were last chapter wasn't exploring our feelings?**

**Hollister1474: I'm not really the friends with benefits type. More the kill you for looking at my girl type. And why do you blame Jacob?  
**

I hadn't meant to fall for Bella. When I met her, I was an utterly slacking second year at the University of Chicago. I had never paid attention to school, getting by on the fact that I am actually just too smart for my own good all through high school. The only thing I paid any attention to was my girlfriend, Tanya. I loved Tanya. God, I still love Tanya. When I think about her, my hands start to twitch toward my web browser so that I can stealthily check up on her, because I still worry about her.

Tanya was my high school sweetheart. If anyone had to pick one word to describe her, it would be hot. She was stunning. She had strawberry blond hair that came halfway down her back, skin that always seemed to have a healthy tan, and legs that seemed to go on for miles. I was, honestly, the envy of every guy in my high school. Because the second word that anyone would pick to describe Tanya was intelligent. We had met on the debate team, and could never figure out why our schedules seemed to keep us apart even though we were both taking advanced classes. We both loved sports, cards, politics, and as I found out when we started dating, sex.

Senior year of high school was probably the most fun year I'd ever had. Classes were easy, I had the run of the school, and a beautiful, witty, sexy girl by my side. Things started to go down hill when we went to school in separate states. Because, as it turns out, the third word that anyone who really knew her would use to describe Tanya was crazy. She was an emotional wreck. I had known all about it before we moved apart, but it was a purely academic knowledge. I had promised a girl who had been abused and abandoned by her family that I would love her, protect her, and always be there for her. Then I had moved a thousand miles away.

One bought of depression, one ongoing battle with alcoholism, tens of thousands of cell phone minutes, and thousands of dollars later, I met Bella. She was dating Mike, who was three years older than her, and had enlisted in the army. I actually became friends with Alice first, before Bella and I ever formally met. Alice and I stayed up all one night, arguing about people, emotions, and love; and I kept bringing up Tanya when talking about romance.

"Do you plan to marry her?" Alice had asked me, in the course of the conversation.

"Yes. I want to spend the rest of my life with her." Never mind that I had never even dated another person. I loved Tanya, and was completely sure about her.

Alice laughed at me. All five feet negative one inches of her, laughed at me. She was one of the few people with less dating experience than I had. And all she had said in response was, "You should really meet my friend Bella. She says the same thing about Mike."

The next day, when other people had started to wake up from the night that Alice and I had just sort of ignored, Alice dragged me off to some room I had never bothered to meet the occupants of. She banged on the door, and left me wondering if people thought she was huge, or maybe the police, when she wanted to get into their rooms. Inside the room, I heard someone yell some thing. It sounded like "EEP!" but it's tough to tell when it's just a weird surprised noise. Then I heard a thunk, and the sound of someone scrambling around inside the room for a moment. Finally the giant fire proof, bullet proof, bomb proof door that came standard on every door way in my dorm was pulled open. Behind the door, stood a pale skinned girl, with wavy brown hair, and brown eyes that somehow looked exactly like how I always felt these days. And a bruise blossoming on the shin that was left bare by the gray capris she was wearing.

I have to laugh at myself, looking back. I mean, I don't believe in love at first sight, but there was no other way to describe it. That one look Bella and I shared at the door to her room let me see that she understood me, that she was going through the same crap I was, that she needed me, just like I needed her.

Of course, we were both in love with other people.

After a moment, Alice decided she wanted to be acknowledged. She cleared her throat, getting Bella to finally pay attention to her. "What do you want at eight thirty in the morning, on Saturday, Alice?"

"I decided my best friends should meet," Alice responded cheerfully. "Bella, this is Edward. Ed, this is Isabella."

"Sorry," I said to the girl we had plainly just woken up. "I didn't realize where she was taking me when she started dragging me."

"It's..." Bella started to answer, but was cut off by a yawn. "It's fine. Come on in, you two."

I jumped slightly, as her hand brushed my arm as I walked passed.

"Sorry," Bella apologized. She starred down at the tiled floor, not meeting my eyes, as blush started creeping up her cheeks.

"It's ok," I said, walking the rest of the way into the room. "You just startled me."

Alice had already thrown herself onto Bella's bed. I assume it was Bella's, at least, because the other one was bright pink, and immaculately made.

"Yeah," Alice interjected into the awkward silence. "Bella's kind of touchy feely."

"I am not!" Bella shot back, finally looking up now to defend herself. Alice and I both looked at her, letting the situation that had brought on the silence in the first place do the arguing. She went to sit on her bed too, picking up a green pillow and hugging it to her chest as she leaned against the wall.

"Only a little," she admitted in a small voice. She was hiding most of her face in the pillow, but the part that was still visible was seeing how I was reacting. And for some reason, I didn't mind. Not like I usually flipped out when people touched me, but how often do we really ouch each other in the course of a normal day? Physically, most of us are fairly solitary.

"It's ok," I said. Honestly, it was better than ok. I had spent so much time with my arm around Tanya, holding her hand, or playing footsy, or in contact in some way, that I really missed it.

"You can touch me whenever you want," I added jokingly, in a mock seductive tone. Well, the tone was joking, but I meant it. And Bella knew I meant it.

Alice rolled her eyes appropriately at my comments. Some how, even though I had only had one meaningful relationship in my life, the one I was in, I tended to flirt all the time. I never really meant it. It was just sort of my default setting.

"Did you actually have some plan for how this was going to go, Ali?" I asked her. "Or were you just going to have us sit here awkwardly until the dining hall opens and I go to lunch?"

"I'm sure you two can think of something..." Alice said suggestively. I glared at her, before pulling out a deck of cards that I had in my pocket. Yes, I always had a deck of cards in my pocket. It's a way to stay entertained, and always makes for an easy ice breaker with anyone. So sue me.

"Want to play something?" I asked, holding out the deck to Bella.

"What do you know?" she asked. She opened the cards and started shuffling. I smiled at her question. I usually asked that in this situation.

"Anything you know and can teach," I answered. "Poker, rummy, spades, Egyptian rat screw, hearts, thirte-"

"That one," said Bella, interrupting my list of card games. I was pretty sure I had listed a few more after whichever one she was picking. Especially since I was half way through saying one game when she picked.

"Which one?"

"Egyptian rat screw," she said, starting to deal the cards out. Only two piles, because Alice refuses to play this with me any more. If I had a best, most useless skill, it was Egyptian rat screw. No one counted cards better than me. No one slapped quicker than me. And when I did lose on merit, no one got luckier than me to win anyhow.

"Doubles and sandwiches?" I ask. She nods. We threw the cards out, back and forth, and Bella muttered something. She did it again a few moments later.

"What?" I finally asked, stopping the game, when she said it a third time.

"Ten," she said. "You threw a seven onto my three."

It was another funny way that we seemed exactly the same. I never even really thought about how when I saw digits to a number, I started playing with them in my head. But apparently she did the same thing.

I was about to toss out another card to restart the game, when my phone vibrated. It did this a lot. The surprise was more that it hadn't started buzzing at me during my conversation with Alice.

"I've gotta take this," I said, throwing down my cards.

"Of course," said Alice, looking up from some terrible teenage vampire romance novel. Bella just smiled and nodded wearily as I stood up to leave.

"We're going to gossip about you the whole time you're gone!" Alice shouted as the door closed behind me. The door finally closed with a thunk, and I whipped out my phone.

"Good morning, Love."

"I miss you," Tanya responded. It was a pretty standard greeting from her when we talked.

"I miss you too," I responded easily. Everything seemed easy, when we were just talking like this. "How was your night?"

She hesitated. "It was... good."

I knew the tone. I'd been dealing with it for most of a year now. "What happened?"

"Nothing," she said quickly. "I just hung out with some friends."

"Oh," I said, becoming certain that, of course, I didn't get to have easy conversations anymore.

"Who was there?" I asked brightly. It was depressing how easily I could disguise attempts to dig out information as interest in her life.

She hesitated again before answering. She can't really have though she was fooling me. I can practically read strangers minds, and I knew her better than I knew myself. "Katie was there, and Marcus, and Tom."

I sighed, into the phone. Of course. Katie was a fairly normal college girl. Pledging to some sort of sorority, I think, and on the volleyball team with Tanya. And Marcus, despite being a huge prick (read; _normal college guy_) wasn't so bad. Tom was. For one thing, he had the hots for the girl I loved. For another, he was sort of a campus drug connection at her school.

She recognized my guilt tripping sigh. "Please don't be upset. I hate it when you're mad at me. I can't stand it when you're mad. I-"

"What really happened?" I asked, running my hand through my hair. It was a nervous habit I had developed which conveniently disguised the moment when I became so frustrated I would start trying to tear my own hair out.

"Nothing. We just... just had a few drinks." I started to respond, but she hurriedly cut me off. "I didn't even get dunk, Eddy. Please don't be mad. I thought you would be proud of me, that I stopped, that I didn't..."

She broke off, sobbing. "Shh...shhh... it's ok, Tanya. I love you. I am proud of you. You're beautiful, strong, smart, creative-

"No I'm not." she retorted angrily, even though she was still crying. "I'm not. I'm an idiot and stupid and ugly and you _should _be ashamed of me."

"I'm not. I love you. Everyone knows I'm yours and you're mine. I love you more than anything."

"Then why aren't you here, Ed?" she demanded sadly. "I need you."

"I don't know," I answered. "All I know is that I love you."

My good morning phone call ended up taking up most of an hour. At the end of it, a much wearier Edward Cullen trekked back towards the room that I had left Alice and Bella in. I wondered if the card game had been canceled, or if they were even there. I came to what was hopefully the same door as I had left. I didn't actually know if it was her door, I realized. I hadn't paid much attention when I had come down here with Alice, and I never paid attention to anything when I was talking to Tanya.

The door swung open before I could even knock. Bella was standing there, looking worried, and holding a black cell phone in her hand. She darted past me, not even acknowledging my existence.

I decided that I had the right room, and walked in. Alice was still there, fortunately. Otherwise, I would have been sort of creeped out. I mean, some weird guy just sitting in her room waiting for her to get back? I hardly know the girl.

"See why I wanted you to meet?" Alice asked once the door was closed. "She just ran off to talk to _her_ Tanya."

"Alice?" I said wearily.

"Yes?" she said sweetly, smiling as widely as possible, to the point where it stopped being pleasant and started being creepy and mean looking.

"Don't be such a bitch."


	3. Our Place

**Responses from Edward:**

**Lady Dragona: Yeah, I suppose those ways work. I'm much more of a fan of standing outside their window with a boombox though.**

**To Bella: You know, I wasn't planning on lying to anyone, or trying to rewind time to start this again.  
**

"_Alice?" I said wearily._

"_Yes?" she said sweetly, smiling as widely as possible, to the point where it stopped being pleasant and started being creepy and mean looking._

"_Don't be such a bitch."_

"Oh, come on Edward," the pixie insisted. "I didn't mean it like that."

"How did you mean it?" I sighed.

"I just think that you all can be…" she paused, grasping at the air, trying to snatch the right word out of it. "…some sort of support group for each other or something. Who else do you know who is stupid enough to be in a long distance relationship?"

I sat down on the floor so my back was to Alice. "You're right," I admitted as I hung my head in my hands. "That doesn't mean you aren't being kind of a bitch."

"I just worry about you two," Alice said. "I mean, I don't have many friends. Not real friends. It's really new to me. You know?"

I sighed again. One sign that you need to make major changes in your life is that you spend at least one hour a day sighing. I hadn't tracked my time, but I was sure it was at least that much. But I knew I should have been kinder to Alice. I looked up, leaning my head onto the mattress to see the short girl on the bed above me. She had short black hair, fashioned into spikes that went every direction. Her pale skin and contrasting hair screamed Goth; while the white shirt, pink flowery skirt, and light blue socks that were covered in ducks insisted that was not the case. When she'd gotten to school here, she hadn't really ever opened up to anyone. Somehow, we had immediately hit it off. Probably because we were both so arrogant we thought ourselves infallible. We joked that we could see the future and read people's minds. But she wasn't the best at socializing and had never really tried – not until she'd spotted a kindred spirit in me. Now she was the younger sister I never had. She really _did_ mean well, she just wasn't used to caring about people like this.

"Yeah, I know," I said.

We sat in silence for a minute, but Alice eventually broke it. "So what do you think of her?"

I rolled my eyes at her. "I think that I just met her and we hardly spoke to each other."

"Soooo?" she pressed.

"So I try not to judge people on insufficient information."

"That is such crap. I saw that look in the doorway."

Stupid observant little... well, I suppose it was part of why we were friends, being good at reading people like that. "What?" I retorted. "She's cute. I can't find people physically attractive?"

"Exactly," Alice confirmed. "Ed, I'm cute. You are on friendly-slash-flirty-slash-throwing-themselves-at-you-when-they-are-drunk terms with half the girls in the house. Hell, half the girls in the dorm, probably. You never notice anyone. Not physically."

It was easy to explain why I never noticed anyone. I loved Tanya. And Tanya was gorgeous. Beautiful. Divine. Any word you have to describe a female as attractive and sexy, go ahead and pin it onto her. And she was all mine. Why would I want anyone else?

While I was musing, and bringing up memories that would turn the still-virgin Alice's face redder than Mao, she was continuing to follow a rather obvious train of logic I wanted ignored. "That means," Alice continued, "that you were stopped by some emotional connection. That you see something in her that you don't see in any of the rest of us. Something beyond the physical."

It's because she was going through exactly what I was. Except that she seemed so fragile. She shouldn't have been going through that kind of shit. When I looked into her eyes, she seemed broken and tired and like she needed help, just like I did. And as if showing that part of ourselves to anyone would be betraying the person we loved. No one else was allowed into our weakness, except the person who was our life.

"I don't know," I lied to Alice. You know the kind of lie I mean – the kind where we all have to pretend like it's the truth, or the whole 'reality' thing falls apart. At least our little part of it. "Why are _you_ friends with her?"

Alice smiled at my question. And not the evil yeah-I-know-I'm-fucking-with-you smile. The normal one that left me wondering why no one had asked her out. "She's different."

"Different how?" I demanded.

She shook her head. "You'll find out what I mean."

I started to argue, but she put her finger to her lips, and I realized that I could hear footsteps coming down the hall. Maybe it wasn't Bella, but as strong as the doors were against brute force, they never entirely stopped conversation from drifting out into the hallway. I didn't want people to hear us talking about her. For some reason (crazy, I know) Alice and I never really liked people to hear us talking. Especially if it was about others.

The footsteps stopped in front of the door and Bella came back in. If it had been me talking to Tanya, I would have been shocked to get off the phone so quickly. But Bella didn't look any better than I would have for the conversation being so short.

"He couldn't talk long," she murmured, stopping just after stepping through the doorframe. I nodded. It was tough, sometimes, talking to Tanya for as long as I did. But I also had as long as I wanted. If we had to steal moments, I would have killed to be where I was now.

"Do you want to keep playing?" I asked, gesturing to the dealt-out cards.

"Not here," Bella said. I looked around the room. There were photos on her bulletin board of her and people she must have known from high school. A recurring theme throughout them was a baby-faced blond haired guy. Two pictures featured him in army fatigues, one with Bella standing with him, smiling, and one with him just saluting the camera. Bella's outfit suddenly took on a whole new meaning, as I realized that she was wearing an oversized (and probably men's sized) army shirt.

"Do you want to go to the eleventh floor?" I asked. The eleventh floor featured a study space and computer lab that any university student could sign into and use. In a private university that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to attend, it sat mostly empty. All of us had laptops. "Alice and I go up there sometimes-"

"Can we hang out in your room?"

And now was the time to be embarrassed while I looked around her room. There were books on the shelf above her bed, a mini fridge in front of her window, clothes hanging neatly in her closet. The desk had some papers on it, and the bed was unmade. Other than that, the place was completely orderly. Not only was my room a mess, it was a mess for a reason. It reflected me, and I never let anyone in it. No one the whole school year, except for one week that Tanya had visited.

"I, uh... couldn't we hang out somewhere else?" I asked, looking for support somewhere. Alice was smirking at the whole exchange. "What about Alice's room? I'm sure it isn't as embarrassing as mine is. Mine's really sort of a wreck."

Alice had a room to herself. Apparently she was a little anal as a roommate. There was only so many times that Emily was able to take waking up and immediately being grilled as to the weather, what impact that should have on Alice's wardrobe choice, how that would affect the walk to class, and any other logistical worries Alice had for the day. When housing opened up the empty rooms for transfers, she was immediately relocated from the eighth floor where Bella, Alice and I all had rooms, down to a corner room on the seventh floor. I hadn't spent much time in it, but I knew that the bed was made all the time that someone wasn't in it, the books were alphabetized by author, and that it was decently stocked with food. Bella must have known all that stuff too, as she shook her head in response.

"I want to see your room." Her brown eyes looked into my green ones, and I couldn't refuse. It wasn't the intensity of the gaze. It was the exact opposite. The shear weariness of her eyes. She would fight me on it, she looked determined, but it just looked like the fight would take so much out of her. Like she was beyond her limits and this one last struggle would finally break her.

"Ok," I said. We all headed out the door. This would be a treasure trove for Alice's attempts to analyze me. I hadn't even let her into my room before, and now she would get, for once, a completely unbiased view of something I did. I've heard it said that we should judge ourselves on how we live when no one is watching, and they would both be able to see how I lived under that condition. As we walked to my door, I couldn't believe that I was actually letting them in. I pulled out my ever present key chain, and unlocked my previously-constantly-barred door.

Once I knew that other people would be looking at it, my mind was leaping over every feature and what they would say. I had arguably the best room in housing. I was supposed to have had a roommate, a fellow second year, but he hadn't showed. My response had been to break out my second set of sheets and push the beds together, giving me something more akin to a queen size bed than the usual twin bed found in one of our dorm rooms. I had a mini fridge also, and I had my privacy.

I also had a huge mess, and reminders of Tanya everywhere. She had put the poster up on my wall when she had been here, and arranged the postcards on my bulletin board. There were four pictures. One was of my family. Tanya was in that one too. The other three were me and her. At debate, at prom, and the last one with me kissing her nose as I tried to hold the camera at arms length to take a picture of us. There was the vase for the flowers that I had given to her when they had arrived from the airport. There were several old coffee cups around, which had to have been from when she was here, since I don't like coffee. Letters from her were strewn around everywhere. A pile on the desk. A pile on the floor by my bed. Sticking out of old text books and stuffed into shoe boxes.

All in all, it actually was better than I expected. I knew Tanya was the focus of my life, and I knew that it was a mess, but the only mildly gross thing around was the old coffee cups. And the stray condom wrapper that I snatched up off the ground. I think Alice saw it though. Bella actually walked right in and flopped onto the bed without even looking around.

"Well, here is my secret lair," I offered. "What do you all think?"

"You made it sound way worse than it really was," Alice's voice floated to me. Her eyes were screaming that this was gold mine of information the likes of which she had never envisioned, but the voice was kind enough. I glared back at her for a moment.

"I like it," piped up Bella from behind me. "We should hang out here all the time. The bed's practically more floor space than any of the rest of us have anyway."

"Well, you guys are always welcome. I don't know if I really want to turn it into some hangout for most of the house though."

And just like that, _my_ room became _our_ room.


	4. Books

**Responses from Edward:**

**Lady Dragona: Well, my room will mostly display mess, these days. And the fact that I am going to be moving soon, from where ever it is that I am living.**

**To Bella: Yes, I know. I'm full of lies. If you hate it so much, why don't you post a story where you can pretend that my taste in literature sucks? Or that I'm short?  
**

We all sat there, hanging out on my bed, surrounded by the mess that was my life, while Bella taught Alice and I to play set. After I had continually beaten her at other card games she decided we should play the game she was best at, so that her ego could be slightly bolstered. Surprisingly, I hadn't been interrupted by any calls while we were playing, and we had been here for a couple of hours. We chatted about everything, and were encountering startling revelations about our favourite books.

"Really?" Alice practically squealed. "You've never read the Ender Saga?"

"No," Bella insisted. "I really more read the classics. Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, anything by Shakespeare."

"The stuff that they made us read in high school," I said with a smirk.

"They _made _you read it because its good literature and you needed to expand your horizons."

"You're the one who needs to expand her horizons. We've been listing sci-fi classics for like ten minutes, and you haven't read a single one. Your childhood must have been a boring place, of bleak and limited imagination." Alice suddenly got a pained look on her face, but it immediately passed as Bella made her retort.

"My childhood was fine. And you read sci-fi books because that is what you can relate to, not because you want to expand your horizons." Now that the look on Alice's face was back to normal, we were all grinning at the banter.

My phone finally started ringing, right when I should have been making some sort of really witty comeback. "Yeah, I relate to aliens and world destroying spaceships of doom," I tossed back as I ducked out of the room. I flipped open the phone as I made my exit.

"Hey Love," I greeted Tanya.

"Hi," she said. "I was just getting ready to take a shower and was thinking of you. And thinking of sending you a picture or two of me."

I smiled, thinking of previous pictures and conversations we had had. "You know, one day I'm going to be in polite company when you send me that sort of picture. Then what'll I do?"

"Why do you think I call you before hand, Eddy?" she whispered huskily into the phone. "I wish you could be here with me this weekend. My roommate is out of town."

"My roommate is always out of town. That was part of the charm when you visited." We hadn't left the room the first day that she got in, except to eat, shower, and use the bathroom. There had even been a fire drill, and we'd just ignored the alarms. "I can't really talk though. A bunch of us are about to go out for lunch."

I felt guilty for saying it. Technically, it wasn't a lie. Alice, Bella and I _were_ about to go to lunch. I hadn't brought it up with them yet, but my metabolism is Olympic-swimmer quality, without the need for exercise. I'd been hungry all day. It wasn't because of that. It was because of why.

"Who are you going with?" she asked cheerfully. It was a fake cheerful. Tanya was always terrified that I would leave her. She had a lot of issues, and never could see that I loved her and always would. That they would have to kill me before I would let her go. She had met Alice, and instantly despised her. Not because she thought Alice was mean or evil or a bad person at all. Just because it hurt her to see another girl, or really, another _person_, spending any time with me, and knowing that it was time that she wouldn't get. I realized that she was insanely jealous and possessive, but then, so was I. Plus, I thought it was cute, since I knew I would never leave Tanya. She would get worried and I would get to comfort her.

"I don't know. Some random first years." This was always a lie. I never went places with people I didn't know. Plus, I knew most of the first years in my house by now. I'd given the lie to keep her from getting upset before, but now I felt like I was giving it to protect the wrong people.

"Is Alice going?" she finally came out and asked, nervously.

"I'm not sure. Do you want me to check?" A quick step to alleviate her fears. To remind her that I didn't care about anyone else and only _would_care about them if she asked me to. It was practically a ritual that I went through every time I was going out with people.

"No, don't worry," she said. I could hear the sadness in her voice. She didn't really believe that part – that I didn't know if Alice was going to be there. "Just don't fall in love with anyone else, okay Edward?"

"I'm yours Tanya. Forever."

"And I'm yours too, right?" she asked. "There's no one else you love?"

I love all my friends, I answered in my head. The truthful answer. The answer I had given her the first time I had told her I loved her, when we were just friends back in sophomore year of high school. "No one else, Tanya. No one before you, no one but you, and no one after you. Only ever you, Love."

"I love you, Edward."

"I love you, too." I whispered into the phone as I paced the hallway. "I'll call you later, okay Love?"

"Yes. I miss you," she said, pleading. "Call me, please."

"I will," I promised. "I love you. Bye."

"Bye."

"I love you," I whispered one last time as I closed the phone. My pacing had taken me right back to my own room.

"Lunch?" I asked cheerfully as I came back into the room. I sometimes wondered if people really believe that I was happy after these conversations, when I pretended to be. If I could convince myself, surely it would be good enough to convince people who I only met a few weeks ago?

Alice looked at Bella, checking her opinion before answering. "Sure." She hopped up from the bed, before turning around and holding her hands out for Bella to take as she got up. It's sort of strange watching a really tiny person help someone up. She had too lean all her weight back to actually move Bella any. We headed out my door, and into the balcony part of the lounge. I swung down the stairs to the tiles below, landing quietly despite having gone down in two steps. I prided myself in my quietness. Our parade finally made it to the seventh floor elevator lobby. The eighth floor had a lobby also, but for some reason, only one of the elevators went to even numbered floors (excluding the second floor. The elevators opened into the dining hall kitchen on the first floor, and maintenance keys were required to get to that floor. Exiting required going to the second floor and walking down some stairs). Fortunately, we got the faster elevator, which was also the one that would have come to the eighth floor. I slapped the '2' button as we walked in and lined ourselves along the back wall.

"You know," I said, breaking the completely comfortable silence that had sat in the elevator, "I got trapped in this elevator once. My first year."

I didn't know why I was telling either of them this. Alice and I were friends because we both didn't open up to people. When either of us wanted to say something to the other, a look would do. Feeling it, thinking it, and we each could just figure it out from there. We never traded stories about our pasts. Not unless we needed them as source material in an argument.

"How'd that go?" asked Alice.

"Well, I was stuck here for like forty five minutes. Probably because it was three in the morning."

"Wait, why were you up at three in the morning?" Bella asked.

"Well, I was doing my laundry and -"

Alice cut me off. "And Edward never sleeps anyhow. Ask anyone. No one ever sees Ed go to bed."

"Have you seen him sleep?" Bella asked Alice.

"I've seen him say goodnight and then go to his room, but I've also heard him on the phone afterwards."

"Haven't you heard? I'm a vampire," I said, jumping back into the conversation. "Ask the RH, Sonny. He'll tell you."

Bella rolled her eyes, and the elevator arrived on the second floor. The lobby extended out along the second floor much farther than the part of the structure that held our rooms. Dorm mythology holds that there were originally supposed to be two towers, connected by the dining hall and the second floor lobby. The second one never got built though. Or so they say.

"No, I'll take your word for it," Bella said. "I'm sure you have no reason to lie about being a supernatural creature."

"What are you talking about? Of course I would lie about being a supernatural creature. Do you think I can just tell people I can read minds?"

"And I can see the future," chimed in Alice.

"Wow," said Bella sarcastically. "And me with no magical powers at all."

"You got gypped," Alice observed.

We turned down the stairs at the end of the lobby, past the front desk, where a not-too-vigilante attendant always pretended to monitor who went into the part of the building people lived in. As we got to the line for the dining hall, I looked at Bella. "You know, I think you are magic."

"I don't believe in magic," said Bella. I shook my head. She definitely needed to read more sci-fi and fantasy books.

"You don't need to believe in it. I know it's there. Magic is like love. It doesn't need the person on the receiving end to know it is there."

"Crazy romantic," muttered Alice.

We got up to the register, where a bored woman swiped our student IDs before nodding that we could go through. We grabbed green trays, plates, and silverware, before perusing the food that was out for Saturday brunch. 'Brunch' meant that they were putting out the crappiest food from all the meals. Except for waffles and custom omelets. Well, really just the waffles. I got into line for one, and managed to get through in a pretty reasonable amount of time. I grabbed some pizza, cereal, and some cherry soda before I went to the house table in the back. My house was the seventh and eighth floor of the dorm that I lived in. Every house had its own set of tables in the dining hall that it usually ate in (there were three dining halls on campus).

Alice and Bella arrived at the empty table shortly thereafter. Our house is not known for being early risers. And noon is early for a Saturday. As soon as we sat down, Bella's phone rang. She answered it hurriedly, and went off to a table in the corner, far away from prying ears.

"So, how 'bout them White Sox?" I asked Alice. She rolled her eyes, and we spent the rest of our first meal together, Bella, Alice, and I, communicating silently while waiting for Bella to get off the phone.

**Author's note: The US and Ghana are tied in World Cup play as of this posting. Why does the US lack the culture of soccer that so many other countries possess? Discuss. Also, go team USA.**


	5. Pause

**Responses from Edward:**

**Lady Dragona: I felt rude saying earlier that you write as a mother to a child in the reviews you give. But you do have that feel to you. I wonder if kids are the cause? Or perhaps just certain experiences and responsibilities. Fun mix of books you have there. Let me ask, what is your opinion on Douglas Adams?**

**On a personal note, to no one in particular, you know what's fun? Your credibility when you have been in a relationship that is based on elaborate and brilliantly executed lies.**

We all sort of dispersed after lunch, agreeing to meet back in my room after dinner. For some reason we all entered into this friendship as if it was some secret club that we couldn't flaunt in other people's faces… and that had some sort of agnostic knowledge that no one else did. The rest of the day seemed to fly by though, as if everything in life had been rendered unimportant. I chatted with people in the lounge, played video games and cards. I did some readings for my class on Islamic civilizations, and got a meatball sub for dinner. But the parts that stuck out in my mind were the ones where I passed Bella. Just a nod or a wave, or not even anything at all. But I remembered those moments more clearly than the things that ate up my actual time.

The meeting, after dinner, was for Alice to try to convince us to get into her latest obsession. Someone (I never did find out who) had recently convinced her to watch some TV show, and she was now spreading its gospel with that fervour that only a convert can ever truly have.

"What was the name of the show?" I asked again, as she searched for it on fanpop. I had my own laptop out, while she was working on Bella's.

"Veronica Mars," said Alice. "And you are _not _allowed to read the Wikipedia entree on it."

Bella and I shared a look – we were silently chuckling at Alice in our own minds. I closed the window that had just finished loading the Google search I'd done on the show. Thinking very quickly, I remembered hearing about it in the past. It was some sort of detective show. More targeted toward high school females, if I remember the people I heard talking about it correctly. Angsty-high-school girls. The kind who have Xanga blogs or Live Journals. You know, the fun kind of people.

We all settled down to watch, and it turned out to be a good show. At least I thought so. But I wasn't going to give Alice easy points for having good taste. I'd make her drag it out of me.

"Sooo..." asked Alice, as the credits to the pilot episode aired. "What did you guys think?"

"It was ok," I said.

"I thought it was good," Bella readily admitted. Apparently she didn't consider it fun to try to torment people before admitting they were right.

"What does 'ok' mean?" Alice demanded, making air quotes.

"It means that it was pretty good. I very rarely give out a better rating than 'ok'," I said, as if my rating was some great concession. What I had just told her was true, even if I was _kind_ of lying this time.

"So I should just not let your opinions get to me?" she said. Her annoyance was really the only reason I did this sort of thing. If she didn't get upset, I would never bother to be a nuisance like this.

"Well, you could say that," I said.

"Or you could just say it was really good," I admitted with a smirk. The small yellow stuffed duck that Tanya had gotten for me at her school came whipping at my head. Or near my head. Alice might be smart, driven and organized, but she was an awful shot. It splattered against the wall behind me before falling to the bed.

"What did you like about it?" Alice asked.

"Wait, what?" I said. If this was the retaliation for my poking of her pride... then I would probably keep doing it, while being slightly annoyed in exchange.

"What did you like? The writing? The characters? The story?" Holy crap. Apparently we were in for the Spanish inquisition about this show.

"Alice, I'm no critic, can't I just _like_ something?"

"Nope," she cheerfully informed me. I started typing on my computer, no longer paying her any attention. I wasn't going to critically analyze the show. Not on my first time watching it. It totally ruins the fun of a story. "How about favorite character? Besides Veronica."

"Veronica's not my favorite," I said, not looking up from the computer screen.

"And I'm not sure who my favorite is yet," said Bella. "We've only seen one episode. We don't know anything about most of them."

"Well which one is your favorite character _so far_?" Alice demanded with a huff.

"Logan, of course," I said. "I can recognize a kindred spirit."

"The obligatory psychotic jackass?" asked Bella, quoting the description he'd been given in the show.

"He's not a psycho. He's crazy. Depressed a bit, and vents it in the wrong ways. You could tell by the stand-off at the end. He's got no sense of self preservation."

"And this is a good thing how?" Bella questioned me.

"It isn't a good thing," I said, looking up to meet her eyes. "It is an interesting thing, and it is something I can understand. But it isn't a good thing."

Bella broke away after a moment. "He reminds me of... someone I knew."

"Who?" Alice and I asked in unison. We both even asked it with the same concern-laden tone that you would want to put on any request for information that you were disguising as a therapeutic, supportive inquiry. And we both assumed it was her boyfriend, or at the very least a past boyfriend.

Bella shook her head. "Just some people from my past."

Assuming it wasn't her boyfriend, her past sounded like an interesting place. And who knows, it might be her boyfriend _and_ her past. Fun in every direction of her timeline. I looked at Alice, wondering if she wanted to go ahead and take the lead on a more thorough interrogation, but she looked concerned rather than her usual curious. I was starting to think that Alice already had more information on Bella than I did. Which meant that I could get it second hand (but only if it seemed to be as traumatic as Alice acted any time it was brought up in conversation). Either that or she just noticed the same fragility in Bella that I did.

"So are we going to watch the next episode?" I asked, moving the mood back towards something lighter.

"I thought you'd never ask," said Alice, practically bouncing, as she clicked over to a different tab in Firefox to reveal that she had already loaded the next episode. I shook my head, thinking that I should have known that she wouldn't take no for an answer here. Bella leaned against me as we settled in to watch the movie, while Alice sat what seemed like a mile away on the other side of bed. Part of me felt like I should shy away from physical contact, but that was just stupid. It wasn't like I would betray Tanya. If a person needed to lean on me for support, I was actually much more reliable than someone else. I wouldn't try to take advantage of her, or even want to convince her to dump her absent boyfriend and date me instead. I had the girl of my dreams, even if she was a thousand miles away in New Jersey.

Over the course of a few episodes, (it's a good show!) I ended up with my arms around Bella, while she laid her head against my chest. I couldn't see her eyes, and I thought she might have fallen asleep. I could smell her hair though. It smelled very nice. Kind of fruity. She murmured something. Did she talk in her sleep? She turned to look at me questioningly. She was definitely awake then.

"What?" I said. I realized she must have said something to me that I hadn't heard.

"You're vibrating," she said. I realized that she was right, that I had been paying so much attention to the show and to her that I hadn't noticed my phone ringing.

"Oh!" I said. Instantly, my arms were off of her. She sat up, and I quickly scooted out from under her and bounded off the bed.

"Do you want us to pause it for you?" asked Alice as I made it out the door. I didn't respond as it swung closed behind me.

"Hey Tanya," I greeted cheerfully as I hit talk.

"Edward?" asked a timid, though definitely masculine voice. Immediately I was on edge. Call me jealous and distrusting, but what was he doing with the love of my life's phone?

"Who's this?" I practically hissed into the phone. There wasn't anyone at that school I liked. The closest thing to a good influence on Tanya were the ones that didn't _always_ encourage her to get drunk.

"This is Stephen," he said. "Listen, we need your help-"

"Where's Tanya?" I demanded, cutting him off.

"She's here, that's what I wanted to-"

"Is she ok?" I said, not caring what _he_ might have wanted.

"Yeah. Well, I mean, she's not hurt..."

"Give her the phone. I don't want to talk to you," I informed him.

I heard voices in the background, one of which I was certain was Tanya's. She sounded angry, even if I couldn't quite make out the words in the conversation. Stephen finally came back on the phone. "She says she wants you to talk to me, that she doesn't want to talk to you right now."

"Why the hell would I talk to you?" I asked, hanging up the phone. I was glad that it gave a satisfying click as I snapped it shut. My old phone hadn't folded closed. Who would want a phone that they can't hang up by slamming closed or down on a cradle of some kind? While I was admiring this fact, it went off again.

"Hello," I answered.

"Don't hang up," Stephen pleaded.

"Wrong number," I responded, hanging up again. Immediately it rang again.

"Is it Tanya yet?" I asked.

"She's not ok!" he shouted into the phone.

"You have my attention," I said, leaving unspoken the part where I would kill him if something had happened when he was supposed to make sure she was ok or this was in any way his fault. I'm sure he heard it anyhow.

"She won't let us leave," he said sheepishly.

"That doesn't sound normal, but it also sounds like _your _problem as opposed to _my _problem." I didn't care about him. Only about her.

"She tore my room apart, has piled everything green up into some sort of nest in the middle of my floor, and dragged Kevin back into the room when he tried to get out." Ok, that was a little odd, even for her.

I sighed. "Can you get the phone near her ear?"

"Yes, probably."

"Do that," I ordered. I couldn't trust anyone in the rest of the world to look after my Love. No one else ever helped her, or even saw when she needed. That was why they ended up in situations like this. Because when someone needed their help, the world just turned a blind eye to it. They didn't deserve someone as amazing and beautiful as her, I thought angrily. They didn't deserve to even know she existed.

"Tanya?" I asked when I heard noise on the phone. "Love?"

**Author's note: Really? Just one person? I guess Shaps is a much more popular author then me. I just thought maybe people would like the story enough.**

**Not that I don't like your reviews, Lady Dragona. Thanks for them. Just what are the rest of you up to?**


	6. Click

**Responses from Edward:**

**Orangemonkey36: A good show. I think we all mourn that it could not continue in its excellence indefinitely, but stories aren't able to do that. Things must change, right? Glad you liked my random angst.**

I trudged back into the room. Because that's really all it was, wasn't it? It was a room. There was some stuff in it, but nothing that I would miss if it fell out the window. I suppose I'd be annoyed that I had to get a new coat, and a different laptop. But really, what good was any of it? Did it even really count as yours if you didn't care about it?

Alice and Bella were still there, though they had quit watching the show. I wonder how much attention they paid. Had they even bothered watch after I left? What time is it? That had been a rather long phone call, even if judged only by the pacing. Around the halls a few times, down all eight flights of stairs, out along the low wall, down the block. It's not a good sign when I end up anywhere away from the dorm due to pacing during a phone call. Good thing my phone seemed to have had a good charge on it. I would have hated to have had to run back to my charger. Or to ask someone randomly if I can borrow their phone as I kept having to do freshman year. It let me just wander all the way out onto the quads this time.

Whatever they had been talking about cut off when I walked in, of course. I doubt that it was anything sensitive, that they wouldn't want me to hear. I'm pretty sure it was just me.

"Everything ok, Ed?" said Alice, asking to be lied to. Courtesy says she has to ask though, right?

"Yeah, fine," I said, sitting down on my bed. I picked at the sheet, twisting it between my fingers.

"It's pretty late. Do you want us to leave?" It wasn't late for me. I bet it wasn't even that far past three o clock yet. Certainly hadn't reached four. Could it?

"No, stay." Did I want them to stay? I didn't want them to leave. I didn't really want anything. Or maybe I did. Maybe I wanted to scream and throw my phone against the wall and throw my bed through the window and just cry. Or just sleep, without thinking or feeling. I plugged my phone into the charger that was by my bed.

"I'm going to go change," announced Alice. "We can make it a slumber party!"

"Yeah," I agreed, mustering up some enthusiasm. It would be new. Different certainly. I had never shared a bed with anyone Tanya. Well, my family, I suppose, when I was a little kid, but I barely even remember that. I just never felt that comfortable with people that close to me when I slept. I felt more comfortable with Bella and Alice though. I wonder if it was because they were just that much smaller than me. They didn't seem like a physical threat. Could that really make that much of a difference?

"I'm going to go change too," said Bella, sliding off the bed. She gave me a hug, pressing her head into my shoulder. "Be back soon."

"See ya," I said hollowly as the door closed behind her. Or I think I did. Maybe I just sat there, unmoving for a minute.

I went and took a quick shower. I always shower at night. For some reason I just hate going to bed feeling the least bit dirty. I'm sort of neurotic about it. I usually brush off my bed before I sleep, to make sure that any dust or dirt that got on it is gone. Plus, the shower gave me a chance to get myself more under control. I had a chance to rebuild the facade that I kept up all the time while I scrubbed the shampoo into my hair. I didn't even know why I did it any more, since I didn't care what the people around here thought of me. But I made sure that I seemed a little more normal, or at least more normal for me. A dash of happiness. Some devil may care attitude. Eight parts snide sarcasm. And, of course, my heart on my sleeve. Can't forget that part. I brushed my teeth too. Can't forget dental care either.

"Hey," I said, half smiling as I got back to the room. Half smiles and smirks were very common for me. I noticed that Bella and I both had blue on, though hers was shorts with some sort of fern like pattern on it, while I had plaid blue pyjama shorts. Blue made too much of an appearance in my wardrobe. Blue jeans. Blue pyjamas. A lot of blue t-shirts, for that matter. My laundry could be a very depressing place.

"Oh good. We were worried you had gotten another phone call." Alice, of course. Only half aware of how jerkish that sort of remark was.

"No, she's asleep now. I'm off duty." Ha, what a crock. I was permanently on call for her.

You know what can be really weird? Figuring out exactly how you are going to be sleeping with your attractive-member-of-the-opposite-sex friends. Do you just ask them how they want you, or some other similarly innuendo laden statement?

"Ready for bed?" I asked from near the door. Conveniently enough, near the light switch.

"Yep," answered Alice, while Bella just nodded. I shut off the light, before awkwardly climbing into my own bed. It seemed a good deal smaller with three people in it than it did when it was just me. Alice had lain down on the side of the bed closest to the door, while Bella had taken the middle. That left me lying down by Bella. We ended up face to face. It felt very intimate, and I thought that it would seem very cold of me to turn around the other way, even if I wasn't in a good mood.

"How are you?" whispered Bella. Not really the question of course. The real question was how my heart was doing, a time zone away from me.

"How do you think I am?" I asked. It wasn't biting or sarcastic. It was just sad. An acknowledgement that she wasn't alright, that I wasn't alright. That honestly, we were beyond fucked. She reached out, slowly brushing her finger tips along my cheek, down my jaw. I shut my eyes. It wasn't like it was too intense, or too intimate, she just seemed to open some thing up in me. I felt like I could be so much more open and honest. Like I was safe. It was ridiculous. She was over half a foot shorter than me, and light enough that I could probably pick her up with one arm. And I didn't need protecting. I always prided myself on that. I was the protector. I was the one who stood between the people I loved and anything that would hurt them. It was part of why I was the way I was. I made sure to never value anything so much that I couldn't give it up for someone who needed it. Tanya needed everything, so I was perfectly willing to talk to her all night, if she was depressed, or to talk her through going back to her own room when she was so drunk she couldn't stand.

And I never took. My life was too good. The biggest obstacle I had growing up was a custody dispute between parents who loved me. I had all the money I could want. I was smart and quick and hell, even handsome, according to a lot of people. So I never leaned on anyone. Never even thought of it. They needed me. It was what I was there for.

But Bella didn't feel like that. Her tracing over my skin felt like a break in an onslaught I didn't even know I had been weathering. Or maybe just another person, standing there by me in it.

"Yeah," Bella breathed. "I know."

I sighed, taking her hand. "I just wish I could protect her. That there was something I could really fight against. Not just … problems in her past."

"I know," Bella repeated. I heard her sniff quietly, and my hand went to her face. She was crying. I was too, I realized, as I heard the gentle tap of tears running from my own face onto the pillow. Not for myself. At least, only partially. But for all of us. Me, her, Tanya, Mike. We would win this, right? Love conquers all. It'll save us from all of this and make it worthwhile. I was sure of it.

I pulled Bella into me. Each of us had an arm awkwardly pinned in between us, and we sort of held hands. I put my arm around her, as we quietly cried with this person that we'd just met less than twenty four hours before.

"She's got it worse," I said about the sleeping Alice. "She doesn't even have any idea what this feels like."

Bella nodded against me. Poor Alice, we thought. Somehow it was just better to feel the huge hole in you than to slowly leak out of it, bleeding to death without even knowing that you were wounded.

"How do you guys do it?" asked Alice, seemingly from out of nowhere. "How are you so comfortable with each other? How do you let yourself fall so completely for someone else?"

They weren't separate questions. Nor were they the same question as many people would think of them. She wasn't asking how we could fall so completely with each other. But being like we were, loving someone as completely as we did Mike and Tanya, it let us be sure of the other. They came with perfect references. Not that either of us knew that the other would love as that much. But that they could do nothing to hurt us, because of what that would do to Mike and Tanya.

It had to suck for Alice. She'd introduced the only two friends she had, the only people she really could relate to, and we had immediately gotten along better with each other than we had with her.

I don't remember if we bothered to answer Alice with words that night. She thanked me later for things I said while she was listening to Bella and I talk. She had pretended to sleep after we had curled around her. But after her question we wanted to make sure that she knew we cared about her, that we loved her too, so I ended up sleeping on the tiny sliver of bed between Alice and the edge. It was a familiar place for me.

**Author's note: Really? Just one person? I guess Shaps is a much more popular author then me. I just thought maybe people would like the story enough.**

**No, I'm just kidding. Apparently the review button wasn't working for some reason. I encourage everyone to go try and review some more. And just as an added incentive, I seem to have gotten ahold of an outtake of some of the nights that Bella and Edward spent together (people who read the old one, you know what I mean). What should I do with it? It's no hardcore sex scene, but it isn't quite as innocent as Edward makes it out to be.**


	7. Presence

**Responses from Edward:**

**Orangemonkey36: I think we all know I am doing this just to hear things like that.**

**Lady Dragona: I like to imagine that I am a good friend, but then, I like to imagine that I am a good person. I like to imagine having a nice uptown apartment sometimes too.**

**It's sort of sad that you feel that needs to be demonstrated. I don't even know exactly which relationships I mean anymore. I mean the ones it applies to I guess. And I don't mean that sounding like a parent is a bad thing. It's just how you sound.**

**Gotbooks93: You know, during a lot of this story, I didn't go to class as much as I should. I've changed majors since then. On the other hand, I've graduated since then, so things are not quite the same as they used to be.**

**Keep hounding Bella for info about Mike and her. A spiteful part of me enjoys hearing about that relationship not working. As for Tanya's meltdown, you don't really get info about that specific meltdown. I mean, I just picked that one because it sounded good in the story. The point was that these happen all the time, and they really fucked me up. I could pick any, but it is just fun to imagine that particular one, isn't it?**

A routine. I would have to say that I got into a routine at the end of fall quarter that year. We had more "sleep overs" in my room, until finally Alice didn't come to all of them. Then it was only a sleep over if Alice came. Bella just lived in my room. We talked about a lot of different things. We liked the same toppings on our pizza, and both hated peanut butter. We liked the same books for different reasons, when Alice would come demanding that we read some series that she was sure we would like.

Really, it was good that she was there. I could stay up as late as I wanted still, she never did anything to get me to stop talking to Tanya, but I couldn't sleep through class anymore. I could sleep through every kind of alarm known to man, but not through her asking me to wake up. And when I would get off the phone with Tanya, and all I could think about was how much pain she was in, and what I would do to myself for failing her, Bella was there to snap me out of it. She was the only thing that ever did. I wouldn't even really be self aware half the time. I would just find myself lying there, with my head in Bella's lap, as she petted my hair. Any tears from talking to Tanya were long dry by then.

I was able to help Bella when she was sick, maybe making up a little bit for her waking me up every morning. I went and picked up her antibiotic from the pharmacy, got her food and water, and basically just encouraged her to stay in bed for a while and sleep. Which, given our class schedule, may or may not have been considered helping.

I was there for her too, when she would get off the phone with Mike. Her conversations seemed a lot more peaceful than mine and Tanya's. At least from my perspective. I think Bella was just making sure to be strong for him. To never let him know how worried she was over everything that was happening, what he was doing and the way he was acting. But she would come back to our room, and climb into my arms afterwards. Whatever I had been doing didn't matter then. I would just hold her, not saying anything. I would wonder if this was what she did for me when I had no idea.

She talked about Mike more than I did about Tanya, so I knew that he wasn't doing well. That he might have been a little off the whole time, but that now he just seemed to be getting more and more depressed, and nothing she could do seemed to snap him out of it. Apparently he was kind of like me, both of us loving snippy, sarcastic comments like they are a family member. Maybe a little antisocial, if left to our own devices.

We kept watching _Veronica Mars_ also. It's surprising what you can learn about a person from their reactions to a TV show. I suppose that it is a better show than most. You could tell Logan reminded her of Mike, sometimes. When he was at his best, crazy and self destructive, she would lean into me almost like she had just talked with him, as if she needed that support again. And I learned why Alice seemed to flinch away from any talk of Bella's childhood from the scenes with Aaron Echolls. Seeing her become so still. Not like she was tense or waiting. Just as if there was nothing there, as if emptiness was the way she should be. We finally talked about it as we were going to sleep after watching one episode that featured the Echolls' wonderful father son relationship.

"One of the pluses of a lot of siblings and divorced parents," I whispered, "was knowing that sort of thing could never happen to me. There was always another kid to run for help, and an adult willing to attack at the slightest mistake by their opposite number."

"You make it sound like they had some sort of war over you." That's exactly how it was. There was always a constant balance of power. If one parent wanted to take us to do something fun, the other parent had to come up with a better activity. When my father started attending church again, my mother joined the missions board at her church. No action was uncountered. It was a diplomatic war, but it was a war none the less.

"How many siblings do you have?" she eventually asked my silence.

"Five. Three older and two younger."

"Wow."

"Well, all my parents are divorced and remarried," I said, part of my standard spiel about my family.

"All of them? Wait, never mind." What I had said actually made sense, if you thought about it.

"What about you?"

"My parents got divorced when I was in middle school," she admitted.

"What was that like?" I asked. "My parents were remarried by the time I was in first grade. I don't remember not having two families." I'd been around two, I think, when my mother and father got divorced. My whole life, I had never asked why they split up. It didn't occur to me as a child, and once I was older, how could I ask that when the person they married had raised me just as much as either parent? It seemed like it would be a slap in the face, reminding them that this person they hate used to hold _their _place.

"It was strange. The house was really empty. But..." she trailed off. I knew what she was saying, but it wasn't an accusation I felt I could make.

"But what?" I asked instead, making my tone as soft as I could.

"My father wasn't really... he was kind of … abusive."

Tanya had been abused as a child too. She'd turned out rather differently than Bella. Where Bella was very tactile and wanted people close to her, Tanya was just confrontational and violent. Not to me, but with her family. And somehow, neither of them was the first friend of mine who had been abused. Is it really that common?

"There are three things that I never forgive people for," I whispered back. "Hurting women. Hurting children. And hurting those I love. How is it that so many people who do all three are still alive?"

"Edward," she said, putting her hand on my cheek. "I didn't tell anyone until after it stopped. I think my mom was in denial the whole time."

Somehow, this didn't make it better for me. I clenched my jaw. I realized that I was shaking slightly. "I would have done anything to protect you. I would do anything to protect you."

"I know," she said pulling herself against me. My arms went around her. It was nice to have her there. It was kind of cold in my room, the perfect temperature if you had a comforter and someone to hold. And right then, when she was admitting to me that she had been hurt, demonstrating how easily she could be, I never wanted to let go. It just seemed like I should protect her. Even if I was only a friend, it killed me that Bella had to go through something like that.

"Do you ever see him?" I asked into her hair.

"Only every now and then. He sends me money sometimes. I think he's kind of trying to make up for it." As if you can ever make up for something like that. "Sometimes people ask me about him, and I feel so awkward. Because I can't explain, but I never see him or anything. I don't know him any more."

"You can't do anything about it now, Ed."

I sighed. "I know. That's what I hate about it. I just... I wish that I could protect you. All these people I care about so much, and when they needed me, I just wasn't there."

"You didn't even know me. You probably didn't know any of them, did you?"

She was right. But it didn't matter. I knew how I was when I was younger, and I'd been a coward. Whenever there had been a tough choice about which parent to spend time with, I had just followed my brother Nick's lead. I hadn't even had the balls to decide that, how would I have possibly actually defended anyone?

"Edward, you were just a kid," she insisted, as if she was hearing my internal conversation.

"What does that matter? I knew what was right and wrong as a child. You can't only have your convictions when you are strong. That's no convictions at all. Like being in love. You love all of the person, not just the easy, pretty things about them."

"Love isn't like that. You don't love all of a person," she said after a while. "You love someone because they make you happy, and because you make them happy. And if they ever have something they need, you help them with everything you've got."

I didn't answer. We both drifted off to sleep after that, just like we did after a lot of nights. The routine continued, as she woke me up at eight in the morning, for my terribly early and GPA-killing introduction Mandarin class. Sometimes I would be staying up way too late, either from talking with Tanya, playing spades, or doing homework. Every time I did, I would head back to my room, hoping that Bella would be there, already asleep. I don't know why I liked seeing her asleep in my room. Maybe I liked seeing her so peaceful, where I can take care of her and know I can protect her. Or maybe I just was so desperately lonely for contact with someone who understood me that I was glad anytime I saw her. But it was what I hoped for any time I stumbled, exhausted, back to my room at three or four in the morning. And when I came back from class, or a meal, or anything else that might have taken me out of the dorm, she was the first thing I would look for. Not that I went searching everywhere for her, but I was disappointed whenever she wasn't there.

So I was happy, obviously, when I came back to my room one day after class, and found Bella sitting there. It was easy to tell that there was something wrong though. Bella never was one to hide her emotions if she didn't need to, and right then she didn't. She was curled up, hugging her knees to her chest. She was still in her pyjamas, even though she had a class that should have been happening earlier in the day (and unlike me, was unwilling to go to class in pyjamas). She didn't even move, or give me a chance to ask what was wrong when I came in.

"Tell me I did the right thing, Ed."

**Author's note: Wow, three whole reviews. Is it because of the offer of possibly risque outtakes?**


	8. Hugged

**Responses from Edward:**

**rubyred753: Break up with Mike. Elope. Have a fling with someone else. Get a tattoo. These are your ideas about what Bella might have done? Ruby, one of these things is not like the others.**

**Lady Dragona: Bella is easy to understand. At least, she sure seems that way to me. And what is complicated about me? People always seem to like helping her. Me among them.**

**I am not a bad person. I do not believe that I am a good person. I will warn you, I have met very, very few good people in my life. Most just have never tried (and failed to be good, as I have). They just lived in ignorance and enjoyed it.**

**Starting in kindergarten. Wow. That impresses me because you are able to remember it, in addition to being a long time for this pattern to continue. Yet let me point this out: all relationships are like that except for true friends. I mean, honestly, did you expect most of these assholes to act any different? And should you have not helped them just because they make up the general mass of humanity?**

**Gotbooks93: What about the timeline confuses me? The story is all from over two years ago, except the introduction, which is only from like a year ago. When I started writing this story, I didn't know how it ends. Now, I lived how it ends.**

**And thanks for the review, amysmith2328.**

_"Tell me I did the right thing, Ed."_

Shocked. No, I couldn't have been shocked. We'd talked about her breaking up with Mike lots of times. It wasn't shocking. It wasn't expected. It just was. I immediately laid down next to her. Bella scooted so that her face was pressed into my shirt. She was still curled up into a ball, but she was so small that I had no problem getting my arms around and holding her.

"I did the right thing, didn't I?" she pleaded. I felt her hands grab the front of my shirt, just to hold on.

Bella had broken up with Mike. Some situations aren't about right and wrong. Is it right that a person should be so miserable, so frightened all the time? Of course not. But it also isn't right that anyone should have to hurt the person that they care about more than anything else in the world.

"We're you happy?"

"No, I haven't been happy... I don't know..." She didn't exactly have to be decisive right now. The big moment when she would have to stand her ground had already happened.

"Then I'm glad you broke up with him. I want you to be happy. He probably does too." It's a funny thing, happiness. Mike probably did want Bella to be happy. But he probably also wanted her to keep dating him. They were mutually exclusive, it seemed, but it was what he wanted. He got a nice front row view of how the things he wanted are impossible. Let's face it, it sucked to be Mike right now.

Her phone started beeping from where it was hidden under my pillow, and I pulled it out to see who it was.

Mike, of course. I wonder how many times he had called before I got back. Or even how long it had been since she had broken up with him.

"Do you want to talk to him?" I asked the ball that was still curled up against my chest.

"Yeah," she said. But it sure didn't sound like it. I let her pull back and take the phone.

"I'll ..." I'll what? Give you privacy. Go hide for a moment? Sit in the lounge? Wait at the door? What the hell do you do when you know that someone you love is about to get hurt, but they feel like they have to? Especially if you have no right to interfere.

"I'll be around," if you need me. Not that there's really anything I could do. She didn't stop me as I left. She didn't say or do anything to make me think she wanted me to leave, but she didn't stop me.

"Ed," called out David, one of my housemates, as soon as I walked into the lounge. "Spades?"

The usual spades table was already set up, with Matt and Lily, two other people who played a lot of spades, seated and shuffling cards. "No thanks. I'm just taking a break before I actually start doing some work."

Lying seemed called for. I wouldn't want people to know about how my relationship was. In fact, I tended to threaten my fellow students if they seemed too interested in Tanya. She was mine, and I didn't want them to even think they had any chance with her.

"You doing work?" he asked. "I never see you work."

"I've got a single. And I usually do my work after everyone is asleep." He shrugged, and went back to spades, where Lily had recruited another player. The funny thing was that he was right. I hardly ever seemed to do any work. I mean, it wasn't that I didn't have it, I just couldn't find the will to do it most of the time. Nothing in me seemed to care about it. I really needed to get my shit together. Instead I watched a hand of spades.

There was really no way of knowing how long I had decided to exile myself from our room, if I was just waiting for that phone call to finish. I would have been surprised if Bella had decided to come out and get me or anything. So after a few minutes I just wandered back to my room, pretending the whole thing had just been some sort of break from doing homework like I had told Dave.

Have you ever been in one of those situations where the emotion in a room is palpable? Where you can feel the relief like a physical thing? Where you can cut the tension with a knife? Sadness like a weight on everyone's back? This was kind of like that. Except even though Bella's emotions were a solid thing in the room, they were so messed up, screwy, and out of control that you couldn't pin one down. Mostly they were bad ones, it seemed. Maybe some relief was in there.

Well, she was done with the phone call.

"Let's play set," Bella immediately announced. Which was fine. Who was I to pry at what must have been an incredibly traumatic conversation? It wasn't like I was a psychologist or something. I was just the random emotional support. I was also the random patsy getting their ass kicked at set, because Bella was not fucking around with that game. I mean, usually I only stand about a third of a chance anyway, but she was focusing everything on those stupid cards, while I went ahead and paid more attention to her than to a game that I probably would have lost even if we had both been our normal selves.

"Is there anything you couldn't forgive Tanya for?"

I suppose Bells could go ahead and talk, now that she was so far ahead in the game that it didn't matter how many I got.

"What do you mean?" It was a stupid response. But I was fishing for exact information about a phone call I'd just missed.

"Could she ever do anything to make you stop loving her?"

That was a different question. Or, maybe not so much. "I don't know. I don't think so. Maybe if she did something that showed she wasn't the person that she is. If she turned into a murderer or something."

Or not. Half of me always wanted to turn into a psychopath. It was such delicious fun, whenever I let myself have little cruel power trips. But the idea was the same. There might exist some action to demonstrate that I was completely wrong about who Tanya was, and about the nature of our relationship. Anything short of me finding out she wasn't really the Tanya I knew and loved, I could forgive.

We lapsed back into silence. It must have been a really bad phone call. I could hear responses that went unspoken, just because Bella was too kind to take her pain out on me or call my relationship into question. She had been so shaken by that conversation.

"What do you want to do for dinner?" I asked as I shuffled the cards. She'd quickly won the first of what was a rather short game anyway.

"I don't care." Dinner wasn't usually an issue at all. We had a dining hall in our dorm. I was usually the one who got hungry first, so I tended to dictate when things shifted more towards food.

"Do you want to go to Bartlett?" Bartlett was a different dining hall that was a couple blocks south of us in the middle of campus. It was considered to have better food than ours, but more importantly, it would not be filled with people who knew us by sight and saw us in the hall every day.

"If you want."

After another couple of games we headed off to eat. Alice hardly ever ate with us anymore, as I had somehow convinced her to give fencing a try, and now she attended every practice and was thinking of buying her own equipment and running for some sort of officer position on the club next year. She always ate after practice with the other fencers. So it was only Bella and I who headed out into the cold to get slightly better food at Bartlett.

Bella and me and my phone. I quickly snatched it out of my pocket, feeling an additional degree of awkwardness answering at that moment.

"Hey, Love." I answered in about the same manner I always did, but it felt like I was speaking ill of the dead, or somehow flaunting my own happy relationship right in front of Bella, when I did it this time.

"Hi Eddy." I breathed a sigh of relief at Tanya's voice. It didn't have anything in it to suggest that she was feeling bad, that she had any problems, or that she was thinking of doing anything that she thought I would disprove of. It was cruel, but at the moment, I could end the call quickly to help another person who needed me more at the moment.

"How was your day so far?"

"Pretty good. The volleyball team has a big trip this weekend."

"I know," I answered, my mind finally bringing up the memory of her telling me that they were traveling to St. Louis or somewhere for a tournament. She had also asked me to watch the online video stream of some of the games. "I can't wait to watch."

"Yeah, well, maybe you should have watched some in high school when you could have actually been there in person."

"You know I couldn't show that much school spirit for such a god awful institution."

"Not even for _me_?"

"You're the reason I didn't drop out." Only sort of true. But it sounded so romantic to say, I just had to do it. "I was about to go eat. Could I call you later?"

"Oh yeah, sure. I should probably go eat too."

"Ok, I love you."

"Love you too." I hung up, turning my attention back to Bella. She was not reacting to the whole thing. Probably trying to give me the privacy that I always demanded for those phone calls. "Sorry."

"Why?"

I didn't answer. It just struck me as a bad idea.

The dining hall in Bartlett is on the second floor, and we made our way up there. She ended up getting a chicken quesadilla, while I got a steak burrito. Mexican food is one thing our usual dining hall sucks at. Taking our seats didn't seem to really change anything though. I am sure she knew there were a thousand questions I had, and I'm sure she could have ranted at me for a couple days about guys, relationships, and every facet thereof. But instead we just ate quietly, talking about random inane things if we spoke at all.

**Author's note: Oh snap, that was the last previously posted chapter. Now we only have new materials!**


	9. Revelations

**Responses from Edward:**

**Lady Dragona: Well, Mike never did like me. He wasn't stupid.**

**Sometimes I wonder if it is just chance that makes relationships last. Perhaps, even if we entirely want them to, relationships can just end.**

**It really depends on the others and the me in question. For example, there are people who see me as sort of an elemental force of nature, a kind of personification of counterculture forces. And there are times when I view myself as something like that, a divine or near divine being. But other people, and often I, don't view me like that. Just because people would help me does not mean that I am interested in or willing to accept their help.**

**Good and bad depends on so many things. Maybe on everything. I would almost argue that it is like beauty, which I have been informed is in the eye of the beholder. Or like complexity and simplicity, which I don't believe are real.**

**Stabbed you in the back, huh? How did that happen? If you don't mind talking about it. I am a little hard to stab in the back, since I care about so few things.**

"Come to bed."

I twitched at the touch, sitting up slightly and sending the Chinese workbook that had been open on me to the floor. Fell asleep while working. God. I never fall asleep when I work. My whole life, before college, I had never fallen asleep in class or really even any time I wanted to stay awake. And now I was falling asleep in the middle of doing things.

I hate sleep. No, that's too strong a word. I dislike sleep. It's unproductive, and while I am informed that even people like me, who don't remember their dreams, have crazy adventures in it, I would rather have adventures in real life. But these days I was constantly tired. Finals week was coming up soon. I had so much to study for, and I was not going to do well enough at it. While it certainly sucked that my grades were shitty, there was a bigger problem. My parents had made a very clear deal to me after my first year. If my grades are below a b average, they were refusing to pay anymore. And since we were actually wealthy, though we act like a bunch of rednecks, my financial aid was coming in as a whole lot of nothing. If they didn't pay, I couldn't pay.

If my gpa for this quarter wasn't 3.0 or higher, I was going to get dragged back to Washington.

"Come to bed," Bella entreated again, poking me lightly in the side this time.

"What time is it?" I fumbled for my phone, trying to check. It had been at least three o'clock, hadn't it? Bella and I had been as inseparable as ever since she broke up with Mike. But my grades were shit, and I was probably going to end up abandoning her. and Alice, who didn't exactly have loads of people she trusted. I should tell them, warn them that I was a fuck up and not someone they could count on.

But I'm fucking Edward Cullen. I never needed to crack a book to get A's on every high school class from calculus to english, I could manage to get good grades. For them, I could.

Either way, I didn't need to tell her tonight, I thought as I stumbled up to my room after her. We both crawled into bed, me compulsively dusting off my feet as I climbed in. She lifted up her head so that my arm could go under her neck. I wrapped my other arm around her. Tonight I could just sleep. If only for a little while.

An alarm went off much too soon. It's always much too soon. Every day, that stupid class at 8:30.

I got up, of course. If you missed more than three classes a quarter, Cai Laoshi would dock you a letter grade. I remember when an 8:30 class was me getting to sleep in. You'd think that after a high school that started at 7, this would be nothing but bliss. You'd be wrong. And even though Intro Mandarin was the most fun class I had ever taken, why the fuck was it taught by a lunatic at 8:30?

Today we were reviewing how to say different countries. Cai had prepared a slide show of various celebrities or people in some stereotypical ethnic outfit and we had to say the country they were from. Jaque Chirac got a quick answer. We got the one for America pretty easily. The person in lederhosen took us a while to come up with. The small Chinese man clicked over to the next slide, and a pair of Asian kids, probably about the age of us students, were staring at us. They were wearing pink feather boas, glittering disco outfits and some Elton John shades. Cai looked around the room, waiting for us to answer.

Now, maybe we are just a bunch of racists, but we seemed to lack the subtle ability to tell which particular Asian country these kids were from. We all sat nervously, looking around, hoping that someone would come up with the right answer. That little Chinese lunatic was vibrating, probably expecting some stupid response.

"Does anyone know?" he bit back a chuckle. "No one?"

The class managed to murmur no largely in unison back at him.

"They're Japanese!" He burst out laughing as soon as he had shouted.

I'm a terrible person, because I thought it was funny when the professor of my Chinese class made snarky little asides about Japanese people. But the rest of the day wasn't that interesting. Islamic civilization class was a giant lecture that I only half paid attention to, and Math class was furious scribbling as my eyes gradually drooped. I found myself making nonsensical loops and wondering how much time had passed twice, jerking my head back up suddenly. It was only an instant though. I really needed to get more sleep.

The calls from Tanya were pretty uneventful. She already was working on final projects of some kinds at her school, one of which was designing, building, and programming a robot.

I trudged back to my dorm, as I was prone to doing. Trudging through the snow, not that it made a difference. You trudge what ever you are walking in, when you are tired enough to fall asleep mid sentence.

Bella wasn't there, when I got back to my room, and I cared, but probably not as much as I should have. Instead I pulled the curtains and fell into bed.

"Do you want dinner?"

"What?" I sat up groggily. Dinner. I guess I missed lunch. "Sure."

Bella was here now, so that was an improvement. "Did you eat yet?"

She shook her head.

"Yeah, I'll get some." I had to find my shoes, which I had taken off, but not paid any attention to. "What time is it?"

"6:45." And it was Friday, I think. I wasn't doing so well keeping track of days, but I was pretty sure it was the end of the week. I pulled on my shoes. Friday meant the dining hall closed at seven.

"Better hurry then."

I'd hoped the table would be empty, since it was so close to closing time, but that was a hope and not what I actually expected. Instead it was crowded, since it was actually a normal time for people to eat. Maybe a little early for college kids. Bella and I sat to the edge, both for the space and because it was near one of the less obnoxious people. I wasn't great friends with Angela, but she seemed to get along with Bella plenty. They talked about classes while I kind of focused on my food.

Ok, that's a lie. I was eavesdropping the whole time. But unless you want to hear about the chemistry labs, lets pretend I came into the conversation late.

"I can't wait for this quarter to be over. I need to get out of Hyde Park." Apparently our quaint little neighborhood on the south side was driving Angela crazy. "What are you doing for winter break?"

I knew what Bella had originally planned for winter break. We'd talked about it before. Mike was supposed to be on leave, state side. He probably still would. Only now that wouldn't be something that mattered to her break.

Bella didn't miss a beat answering, of course. "I'm just going home. I'll see all my old friends, hang out with my mom. What about you?"

Honestly, Angela's plans were pretty similar. Most of us were just going home, see friends and family. Very few (Alice, for example) were going off to do anything crazy.

"How about you, Ed?" Of course I had nothing. I actually kind of hated going home. I felt like I was powerless. At school, any school I'd been in, really, I had a certain notoriety, a certain respect. At home, I was just a kid that got ordered around by my family. As much as it would be good to see Tanya again, I wished I was staying in Chicago.

"The usual. Avoiding going home as long as possible, then escaping it as soon as I can."

"What do you mean?" Angela was much more tolerant of her family than I was of mine.

"I leave Saturday after the dorms close and arrive the second when they reopen." I think my tone kind of put her off. She dropped it after that and I got to finish eating. Bella finished way before me, since she'd gotten a lot less, but she'd waited for me to finish before she went back up.

Bella confirmed that we would be watching some more Vmars now, if I was up to it. I, of course, agreed. We we getting near the end of the second season. But I wasn't planning on immediately watching.

Admitting failure has never been my strong point. It isn't like I had to do it a lot in my past. So I let Bella get out her laptop and acted as if I was going to watch while I gathered my confidence to talk.

"Bella?" I finally asked. What's a little pride between friends, right?

"Yeah?"

"At dinner just now, I was kind of mislead about when I get back. Well, maybe not when."

"Not when?" Great job, Ed. That was phrased in a hard to understand though somewhat entertaining fashion.

"My parents aren't going to pay for me to go here anymore if I don't get at least a 3.0."

"And your grades aren't that good."

"Yeah."

"What are you going to do?"

"I don't know." She didn't say anything to that. But I felt like I needed to continue anyhow.

"I'll find a way. I'm sure I can convince them or something." Except that I wasn't. This deal, this pledge to get at least B's, had been the product of furious negotiations after my cell phone bills had sky rocketed, my grades had plummeted, and I had ignored my family's wish for me to come home for spring break. Instead, I had visited Tanya. They'd said they were refusing to pay after that, but I convinced them not to. And now I was a razor's edge from blowing it again.

She didn't respond. I was glad, because I was sick of people always telling me ways they thought I could go about it, ways to come up with the money that they thought I hadn't thought of yet. But it also doesn't make you feel a lot better when no one can think of a way to not abandon your friends.

"I'll find a way to get back. I promise." Because I can totally make that sort of promise.

"Do you still want to watch?"

"If you do."

**Author's note: I'm conducting a test. SEX. Now review.**


	10. Do I make it that easy

**Edward's Responses:**

**Orangemonkey36: I suppose you are right, I was sinking. But that is not bottom. That is not anything close to despair. I posed this question in the copy of this story that Shaps was putting up: What is the most important thing about you? The thing that defines who you are? I lost that. But that is too complicated, to abstract. Let me put it a simpler way. What is the thing that scares you the most? The absolute worst thing you could imagine? There is where you will finally find me bottoming out. On the other side of surviving my worst fear.**

**LadyDragona: What did you share with her, that she could turn against you? If I felt depressed, and people knew it, so what? If people wished you well after your father's death, how was that upsetting? Are you sure the girl was malicious, and not just different, unable to understand how it hurt you?**

**Mrs. Bella Marie Cullen1901: A wonderful line from Esme. Beautifully, paradoxically correct. Bella is very beautiful. I could go on some time about how beautiful she is. But I don't know if this is really the place for me to be saying how much I like the way her hair feels, or how delicate her neck is, or how her eyes naturally look the way that people who purchase a product called circle lenses are trying to achieve. I could describe her for a really long time, but I am not going to.**

**And are you asking me to tell you how the story ends? You could just quit reading if you knew that, and surmise the rest of the journey.**

**Furthermore, why do you want my tale to end? Already lost interest in me? On the other hand, you instantly lose major points for saying how you can't stand stories with "Edward" and "Bella" not together. Good stories come in all shapes and sizes. What would you have done if I had simply named us differently? We aren't really Edward and Bella, you know. We are two real people. This really is what happened, though I changed some of it around because my memory sucks. Is the story less compelling because of that? I find it more compelling, but then, I'm living it.**

**To Bella: Sorry I didn't text back in any sort of timely fashion. But as you might have noticed, I happen to love you, and miss you, and can't wait to see you again.**

"Dude, what was that last recorded one?"

"I'm pretty sure it was about a girl on vacation in the country." The last exam of the quarter for me. 8:30, Friday morning, can you guess what it was? I had just finished the exam for Mandarin 101. "The main thing I remember from the whole test was thinking that I was whipping out radicals like a sultan. Fuck you for showing me Brad Neely."

"Ed, how could I not show you that? How could I not show everyone that?" Josh asked. He was right, of course. Those videos were hilarious, and I had watch Baby Cake's Role Play Tournament like half a dozen times during the previous evening's all nighter, or when ever I felt like I needed some motivation to get back to studying.

My phone rang. It was, of course, Tanya. It was the phone that didn't exist. It was on her family's plan, not mine, so that I could hide the amount of minutes we talked from my parents and get rid of most of the costs for hers. So as far as anyone else was concerned, the phone didn't exist. People would ask me for a number, and get told that I don't have a phone. They usually would drop the matter when, in response to them saying they had seen me on a phone, I insisted that I knew what phone they meant, and that it didn't exist.

"Hi Love." I didn't change my greeting in anyway to show that I was really starting to dread these calls.

"They're selling the farm!" came the anguished wail from the other end of the line. Pretty much the tone that I heard every time I answered the phone this week. And yet, I considered it an improvement over the previous week's tone, which had been drunk. Again. The whole week. I'm sure her grades for those finals will suck just as much my whole week had, knowing that she was drunk all the fucking time with those losers, when she should have been studying, or asleep, or TAKING A FUCKING EXAM!

Sorry. I just fucking hate that. People would call themselves her friends and then encourage her to ruin her life. Fuck them. But back to the conversation.

"Shit. I'm sorry, Love." She'd spent part of her childhood on that farm. Her grandfather's farm in upstate New York. Acres of forest and farmlands and rolling hills that she could just wander through when she was a child. And when you consider that she got beaten at the place she was sent to after this one, you can see why she holds that farm in such high regard. Her whole family was up in New York for the winter holidays. That's misleading. They're up there over the winter holidays for her Grandfather's funeral. There, more accurate now.

"How can they do that?"

"Love, it'll be ok. You still know a lot of people there, right? You'd still be able to go visit the area, just like you do now, right?" I cared more about that stupid farm than I did anywhere else on the planet. Partially because I didn't care about anything, but mostly because she did. No, not the farm. I just wanted to console her somehow, from 800 or so miles away.

"We'll never get it back. The farms around it all got bought by the Amish and the Amish never sell."If I could just be with her, I could fix all of this. I mean, if you ask her family, she's moody, violent, stubborn, drinks and does drugs. But she never was around me. Maybe moody, sometimes. The thing was, all of those things describe her whole family, so is it really that shocking that they think she is? You do what you have to to survive. "I wish you could be here, Ed."

God, did I want to be there. She needed me. The only home she had ever known was being sold out from under her, the only person who had ever treated her decently as a child had just died. And I was here in Chicago, discussing web comics, watching TV shows, and sucking on my tests.

Because I had. I had screwed myself by taking this Chinese class, and testing brilliantly would maybe get me a C. I probably got a B in my Econ class, and in Islamic Civilization, but I had fucked up in math and chinese. Why had I taken them? Why couldn't I just admit that I was fucking second rate at this place, that I couldn't focus or think or sleep or get anything done? And this time I needed those. "I'm sorry, Tan. You know I'll get to you as soon as I can. And we'll get to spend New Years together, and Christmas."

"Will you come over to my family's place for Hanukkah?" I don't know how people as shitty as her family could claim any religion at all.

"Of course. I'll proselytize all over the place." She laughed, sniffing slightly. My own family was a bunch of born again Christians. "I _will _see you soon, Love."

"I know," she said. She'd grab on to the only line thing she could to hold onto. Without a college setting to get booze, seeing me soon was it. "I just wish we didn't have to wait."

"You'll make it," I said, waving Josh to go into the dorm without me. We'd finished the walk back while I was on the phone. "I love you."

"I love you too." She sighed. "Do you need to go?"

"Well, I kind of need to go pass out."

"Ok. I'm sorry I always call you upset." Tanya hated showing weakness in the first place. She really hated having to depend on anyone like she leaned on me.

"It's ok. I like knowing I can help. That you need me." Honestly, it made me feel like I was doing something with my life, to help this beautiful girl. Even if I hadn't loved her.

"Go sleep," she said, sniffling and laughing a little.

"I will. I love you."

"Love you too, Ed."

"I love you. I love you. I love-" I closed the phone "you."

Of course, part of that was a lie. Fuck sleeping. Sleep is for the weak. Exams were over, and I could sleep when I was back home, trying to make the time pass quicker with my family surrounding me like I had jumped in an ocean. Instead I headed up to my room, and found Bella.

"Did you eat lunch yet?"

If she were me, she probably would have rolled her eyes. But apparently no one does that quite as much as me and my siblings. "It's 11:15, Ed."

"So? The dining hall's open, and Chinese exams are hungry work. Plus, I'm exhausted."

"And food helps with that?"

I think she assumed my answer from the way I headed back toward the elevator. She did follow me down, since I had ahold of her hand. How depressing would I have looked, eating lunch there all alone? Answer: exactly as depressing as I looked every time I had done that in the past. But this time, I didn't have to.

"What did you think of the end of season two?" Veronica Mars. Somehow, I was sure I was using this as an analogy to our relationship. I just can't figure out how.

"Alice says to ignore season three."

I hadn't paid the most attention to what was going on in the show. But I had caught the important parts. "If it ends early, it ends at Alterna Prom."

She leaned into me as the elevator descended. "That would suck, if it just ended there. Both wanting to be together but stuck apart."

"Just trying at the wrong times." The doors opened. "We are watching season three, right?"

"You really have been out of it."

"Hey, I was studying for a lot of that time."

"Mhmm."

We split up to get our food, but the selection as the dining hall got ready to close for winter break was winding down, so we didn't take long.

"I want to do something for dinner. Go out. Have fun. Wander the streets."

"We could finish watching Veronica Mars with Alice."

"We're that close to the end of it?" Man, I had been missing it. She nodded, eating some sort of yogurty thing. It had granola and other stuff that I only was in favor of some of the time.

We ended up watching Veronica Mars. I, of course, faded in and out of consciousness the whole time. We did order pizza for dinner, or maybe some sort of snack for me. And at the end of the night, Alice, of course, turned down the offer to stay in my room. So that left Bella, as tantalizing as she always was, in her typical sleep wear. A blue tank top, black shorts. And, ummm, underwear, but no bra (I am a guy).

"When are you leaving tomorrow?" That was it. The important question, wasn't it. When were we each leaving.

"My flight to Oregon isn't till 7:30." As late as I could justify it. "When are you leaving, Bells?"

This wasn't going to be it. We were not going to be split apart like this and never see each other again. I was Edward fucking Cullen, and things don't just go wrong in my life like this. I would manage, by hook or crook or sheer force of will, to get back on track.

"Mine is at noon." Noon. So you would leave at 10 or so. Bella Swan was not walking out of my life forever at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning. We finally went to sleep at some point. I don't know what time it was. I'm sure Bella laid there awake anyhow. I would have instead I ended up fielding one last call for the day from Tanya, then slipping from consciousness before I could even try to stop myself. I wanted to stay awake. That was one of those nights that you should stay awake for, just lying there with her, only our hands and our feet touching across that stupid pair of beds I had pushed together. Our bed. In our room.

I woke up with her, but I couldn't quite get my mind working full speed. Everything shot past me, too fast, as I helped her gather her things and wait for the bus that would take her to Midway airport. We must have waited there for a while, but it didn't seem like very long. My sleep deprived mind missed it as those minutes fell away.

"You'll keep in touch, right?" Bella asked, as the bus came into view. "Email?"

I smiled a little. "You know, Tanya reads my email. We both read each others." I yawned. "She probably won't like you."

"Will you call me?"

"I'll keep in touch, Bella." She wrapped her arms around me tightly, trying to hold on to the feeling of me with all the layers of coats and jackets in between us. I held onto her too. "I will come back to you, Bella."

And then she turned around and got on the bus.

**Author's note: See, I wrote the word sex, and the chapter got more reviews than almost every other one.**


	11. Images

**Author's Note (Well, poster's note, I guess is more accurate): Edward, I took down that response to laurieoflove. You don't know her, what she might be like, or what she meant or anything. _I _asked her about saying anything about Tanya cheating, and it seems a reasonable thing to think since _you _were cheating on her. Chill the fuck out.**

**To laurieoflove: Would you like me to forward him the PM you sent me?**

**Responses from Edward:**

**On a note to everyone, wow, this was really hard to put together. Most of these emails? Long gone.**

**reader414: Hi, Alice. Come out of the woodwork to defend yourself from an accusation of being a bad friend, which you always secretly feel like you are?**

**Mrs. Bella Marie Cullen1901: Don't worry, I was just giving you a hard time. As for the advice, fire away. They don't make situations on which I do not have opinions to offer. On a different note, could you not sign your reviews as Bella? Bella kind of does that when she answers questions in her reviews.**

**Lady Dragona: Your hopes will avail you little. The break was not what I needed it to be.**

**It honestly doesn't sound like she meant any harm. As a "popular" person, how did you expect her to react to you talking about feeling alone, unaccepted, and mourning your father? She told people how they should be nice to you. How they should include you. So they came up and talked about what would have kind of been rude to ignore. For some reason, you seemed to view this as an attack. And honestly, maybe she just had a lot of time commitments when school started up? Did she stop calling and hanging out with you? Or did she repeatedly refuse to talk to you or hang out with you? Because maybe you could have tried to keep in touch with her, if you felt the friendship slipping.**

**Obviously, I don't know the whole story. But I take one person to keep in touch, and two people to let a relationship fall apart.**

**Hello to Bellaangel383.**

**And to _my _Bella: I love you and miss you. I would just feel much better about everything if you could be hiding yourself against my neck right now.**

"Hello?"

"Hi. How are you doing?"

"I've been better, Bells."

"Was your flight ok?"

"Yeah, sure. Somehow, it wasn't even delayed or anything."

(Pause)

"How was yours?"

"It went fine. Renee came and picked me up from the airport."

"Cool."

"Is Tanya back yet?"

"No, she doesn't get back for a few more days. I'm sure they'll be great."

"I'm sorry."

"Not your fault."

"Miss you."

"I miss you and Alice, too. And just you."

"I guess I need to go. It's late here."

"Yeah."

"Bye, Ed."

"G'night, Bella."

*click*

* * *

On Thur, Dec 20, 2007 at 1:50 PM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

I really should kill her family.

But hey, how are you? Anything fun happening in sunny Florida?

Trying to not think about life and to avoid my family,

Ed

On Thur, Dec 20, 2007 at 5:42 PM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

What happened?

I got to see some of my friends from high school. You know, I feel much taller around them.

~Bella

On Thur, Dec 20, 2007 at 3:02 PM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

I entrusted them with my most valuable possession, and they bring it back to me damaged.

She got in a fight with her brother. Of course nothing was done about it. Even though she ended up with a fractured pinky.

You're high school friends are all tiny asian girls. Every. Single. One. Even the men. Especially the men.

On Thur, Dec 20, 2007 at 6:06 PM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

What a jerkwad. Is he older?

And my little asian women make me feel like a giant.

~Bella

On Thur, Dec 20, 2007 at 3:09 PM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

No. A couple years younger. He just happens to be an offensive lineman on the high school football team. Oh, and someone who needs to die.

Of course, Tanya disagrees. In fact, she repeatedly insists that I not kill him.

The bone on the tip of her finger is split into two pieces. One of them is being pulled away from the other by the tendons of the finger. And no one feels something should be done about this. This happened over a week ago and a doctor's appointment isn't even scheduled.

I'm going to go meet up with a beautiful, injured girl who has a fear of doctors.

On Thur, Dec 20, 2007 at 6:17 PM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

Still a jerk. She's write though. Killing him probably isn't a good idea.

That's pretty fucked up.

Have fun. I'm going to go make dinner.

~Bella

On Fri, Dec 21, 2007 at 12:02 AM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

My grades finally all posted.

On Fri, Dec 21, 2007 at 9:33 AM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

How did you do?

~Bella

On Fri, Dec 21 2007 at 9:34 AM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

Autumn 2007

CHIN 10100 ELEMENTARY MODERN CHINESE-1 C

ECON 20000 ELEMENTS OF ECONOMICS ANALYSIS-1 B

MATH 20300 ANALYSIS IN RN-1 D

NEHC 20501 ISLAMIC HISTORY & SOCIETY-1: THE RISE OF ISLAM & THE CALIPHATE C+

* * *

"Hello?"

"Ed?"

"Yeah?"

"What are you going to do?"

"I don't know."


	12. Morning

**Poster's note: The responses from Edward are now censored.**

**Response from Edward:**

**Apparently people are put off by my rants. I didn't really mean to single people out, and honestly, you all have been a lot less negative about Tanya than the previous batch of readers. (A lot less numerous too.)**

**Gotbooks93: Wait, you think Bella's life is going downhill because it no longer has a draining, emotionally abusive relationship or a best friend who is constantly making you worry about him? I mean, she's still getting almost all A's, doesn't get in arguments with her family all the time, is generally well liked, (I don't know if I was, honestly.) and is not being forced into leaving the school she has grown to love. (I think I like Uchicago better than she does anyway.) Basically, I think you missed your target with this review. Her life was fine. My life was sliding into shittiness.**

**reader414 (Alice): Well, glad to have you. Any more progress on the Iran paper?**

**LadyDragona: It feels like you come down on yourself rather harshly saying the problems are your fault. It isn't like they were really problems. More just misperceptions.**

**Can we see the poetry? Or the grading, I suppose, but it seems like the poetry is a more reasonable request.**

**To 18forks, _my _Bella: Once again, I have failed to proofread your emails. Let's see if Book does it. Take as much time to review as you need, Beautiful One. I know you're busy at the moment. I miss you and love you.**

On Sat, Dec 22, 2007 at 11:43 AM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

My parents finally saw my grades.

And other weirdness ensued.

On Sat, Dec 22, 2007 at 4:44 PM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

What did your parents say?

And what was the other weirdness?

~Bella

On Sat, Dec 22, 2007 at 2:37 PM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

Well, there was a good deal of lecturing on how they think it was Tanya's fault. Apparently I can't just fail on my own. I'm "too distracted."

On Sat, Dec 22, 2007 at 6:03 PM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

Sorry. That sucks.

So what are you going to do?

I'm getting dragged off to dinner and won't be able to respond for a bit.

~Bella

On Sat, Dec 22, 2007 at 5:23 PM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

I might be able to get back. I just have to prove that I am the kind of student they would want to invest in.

On Sun, Dec 23, 2007 at 12:17 AM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

Being their son isn't a reason to invest in you?

~Bella

On Sun, Dec 23, 2007 at 1:45 AM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

Why would it be? It isn't as if I haven't been lying to them this whole time. We made several deals, had lots of "talks" in the past, and I broke them all and ignored the advice.

It shouldn't be that hard. They just want me to work full time, go to Peninsula College for a semester, and some other inspired extra curricular that shows I am living up to my potential. A's in school, of course.

On Sun, Dec 23, 2007 at 11:48 AM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

That doesn't make the most sense, even if I understood what it meant.

So when are you coming back then? Did you look at other sources of funding? Loans? Or what about your grandparents?

~Bella

On Sun, Dec 23, 2007 at 11:47 AM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

How did that not make sense? Especially if you understood it fine. Definitionally, it had to make sense.

I guess I'll be able to get back next fall. Maybe the summer if I'm lucky.

Does everyone think I'm stupid? Tanya keeps asking me that too. Of course I looked for other ways to pay. And I'm not asking my grandparents. I barely speak to them, I'm not just going to go and hit them up for money.

Plus, they turned me down last time I tried to get them to cosign. Called my father and what not. So that idea is a little played out, you know? I've been at this for a while, trying to find a way out from under my mother and stepfather. But really, people just don't hand twenty somethings with limited job history and even less credit history checks for fifty grand.

On Sun, Dec 23, 2007 at 3:19 PM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

I am not having an argument about this.

Sorry. We only want to help, you know.

Are you doing anything for Christmas?

~Bella

On Sun, Dec 23, 2007 at 1:00 PM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

Why do you never like having pointless arguments with me? You know it's one of my favorite past times.

I know. I don't mean to get upset at people. I'm just frustrated at this whole situation. Being stuck here. I hate it.

Did Alice tell you about the Ed-ucation loans she offered to set up with her trust fund?

I've got the usual for Christmas. Christmas eve services at church, then the morning at my mother's and then driving to Seattle in the evening to get to Christmas at my father's. I so love holidays and trying to be in multiple places at once.

At least I'll get to take a long car trip with Tanya. Those are always fun. Though I am never sure why we don't crash.

On Sun, Dec 23, 2007 at 4:09 PM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

What part of not arguing about this was unclear?

Yeah, we talked about you the other day. She said you refused.

At least part of your Christmas will be fun. And you'll get to see your family. Family is a good thing.

~Bella

On Sun, Dec 23, 2007 at 1:21 PM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

Pride doth require that I refuse. I am not becoming a mooch off of my friends. Not the real ones anyway. And I just consider it stealing from the nonreal ones.

I somehow doubt that my family would approve of my favorite parts of the Holidays. And I know. They just frustrate me sometimes. Or smother me. One of the two. Or both of the two.

On Sun, Dec 23, 2007 at 4:41 PM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

Is it bad that I almost wish you had taken the money from Alice?

I need to go get ready for a family dinner. Bye.

~Bella

On Sun, Dec 23, 2007 at 1:43 PM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

I think it's nice.

On Mon, Dec 24, 2007 at 12:00 AM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

Merry Christmas (Eve)

~Bella

On Sun, Dec 23, 2007 at 10:53 PM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

Early Merry Christmas to you too.

On Mon, Dec 24, 2007 at 9:00 PM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

Merry Christmas. I hope you get everything you want.

On Tue, Dec 25, 2007 at 3:00 AM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

Merry Christmas.

I miss you.

~Bella


	13. Dreams

**Response from Edward:**

**Well, there were more than usual this time. I better get started.**

**Carlisle'sPetiteDefenseur: I am not going to address each of these. Especially not the mistake ones. The person posting the chapters can fix those if he wants to. Addressing the one that deserved the most response, Alice was asking to be lied to because she knew I would not talk about it. She knew I wasn't ok, but asked the question anyway, so I could claim to be and life could move on.**

**Also, why do you hate the World Cup?**

**Orangemonkey36: You haven't seen me despairing yet. Not really. That isn't for some time. On the other hand, take heart. Right now, this part of the story was over two years ago. I definitely live through it. I live though the whole story, in fact. I think.**

**NIna: I sure am now. At the time though, it would be stupid to try to say I did in the way you would probably mean it. But how do you measure love? In thoughts or words or deeds? In some combination?**

**Lady Dragona: I didn't really expect you to share any of it. But I'm sure I would be amused if you did.**

**Yeah, I know lots of people who take blame on themselves too readily. Let me tell you, if it isn't their fault because they were stupid, then it was probably _my _fault.**

**Just kidding. I think.**

**Mrs. Bella Marie Cullen1901: Well, honestly, you are certainly not the Bella of this story. And I doubt you are anyone's Bella at the moment. Eighth grade? I hope you aren't yet.**

**Why was it strange that you liked boys? I was under the impression that most girls did that.**

**How was he using you to get other girls? (And in fourth grade? I guess I'm weird, I just never cared about that stuff when I was younger. Barely care about it now. I'm good at it, I just don't care that much.)**

**Why do you call him a gentleman when he seems like a cowardly d-bag? And he does sound like that to me. I mean, I enjoy causing a certain amount of pain to people. I'm cruel like that. Either he is cruel in the same way, but too cowardly to tell you of his "joke" to your face, or his friends are able to push him around and make him do whatever they want. You know, maybe you can do this guy some good. If he lets people manipulate him, maybe you can get him to have some backbone.**

**Also, I am terribly amused by you declaring yourself the smartest person in class. I'm sure I lack the whole picture, and you might want to try and set me straight, but your class doesn't sound terribly impressive.**

**On to the actual advice. I don't think you should worry about this so much. If you like him, ask him out. If he turns you down, or tries to make it some joke, who cares what those losers think? But maybe ask him in private, so that you can see what HE actually thinks. Regardless, I don't think you should worry about what happens with this guy.**

On Tue, Jan 1, 2008 at 3:00 AM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

Happy New Years!

~Bella

On Wed, Jan 2, 2008 at 11:38 AM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

Hey, happy New Years to you too.

How were your holidays?

On Wed, Jan 2, 2008 at 3:14 PM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

Not a white Christmas, in case you were wondering.

Mom went on a church kick, so we ended up going to some sort of nativity play. Then I got dragged out on new years eve to some random restaurant/bar. I'm quite sure my mom had more fun than me. And that I was taken as a designated driver.

~Bella

On Wed, Jan 2, 2008 at 12:31 PM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

Sounds both better and worse than mine. I got tickets to the Holiday Bowl from my family. So Tanya and I have kind of been road tripping around that for a while. We were still on the road for New Years. Which was fine with me.

Christmas was full of family, as might be expected. It was pretty though. Very much a white Christmas up here.

On the down side, on Friday I am starting working with the Newtons again. And the week after that, "school" starts. And Tanya is now even more convinced that my family hates her. And my family is even more convinced that she is part of why I am doing poorly at school.

I had fun though. Even if the team I was rooting for lost.

When are you going back up to Chicago?

On Wed, Jan 2, 2008 at 4:01 PM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

I'm flying back up sunday when the dorm reopens.

Your holidays sound a lot more action packed. Even more convinced?

I wish you would be at chicago when I got up there.

~Bella

On Wed, Jan 2, 2008 at 1:10 PM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

Ha, me too. I wish I could be there instead of here right now.

Event ensued that propriety insists I cannot discuss more. Now everyone but me is more pissed at everyone else.

On Wed, Jan 2, 2008 at 4:15 PM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

Sorry.

I'm meeting up with some people in a bit. I'll email more later.

Miss you.

~Bella

On Wed, Jan 2, 2008 at 1:22 PM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

That's fine. I'm going to go get some lunch, and probably a lecture about what I am doing wrong in my life (hint: there's a lot of it!).

And it isn't your fault. Of that, I am certain everyone agrees, even if none of them believe me about it being MY fault.

* * *

On Fri, Jan 4, 2008 at 2:47 PM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

First day of work whoo!

On Fri, Jan 4, 2008 at 6:01 PM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

Lol. Tell me how it goes when you get back.

~Bella

On Fri, Jan 4, 2008 at 11:47 PM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

What is there to tell? At least I'm a stock clerk this time. I was a cashier at Newton's Supermarket when I was younger, and all that did was give me a disdain for the general public. Now I've been put in charge of the soda and water aisle. So less interaction with people.

Tanya came by and we ate dinner during my break.

You're probably already asleep by now, aren't you?

On Sat, Jan 5, 2008 at 11:03 AM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

Yeah, I was asleep.

It doesn't sound like the worst job possible. Just like a boring job.

At least you have Tanya.

~Bella

On Sat, Jan 5, 2008 at 10:32 AM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

The worst possible job is cold calling residential telemarketing. I did that for like a week a few summers ago. It was by far the creepiest, most blatantly immoral thing I have ever seen. I would rather deal drugs than do that again.

Plus, I was awful at it.

You get to go back to Chicago tomorrow!

On Sat, Jan 5, 2008 at 1:40 PM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

I know. But you won't be there :(

What was so sketchy about it?

~Bella

On Sat, Jan 5, 2008 at 10:57 AM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

Sorry. And that is my fault, so don't try to tell me not to be.

As for telemarketing, the whole set up just seemed like it was based on and encouraging credit card fraud. I was given a headset and a computer. Start the program running, and it calls up a person, throwing their name, address, and credit card info on the screen. Then you are supposed to just get them to say yes or some sort of affirmative response at certain places in the script. We greeted people by saying we were calling about their credit card, and listed the last four digits for them.

More people decided someone had stolen their identity after talking with me than decided to buy the discount programs that place was pushing.

On Sat, Jan 5, 2008 at 2:03 PM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

That does sound a little weird.

I'm packing more jackets and hoodies for chicago. They were among my christmas presents.

~Bella

On Sat, Jan 5, 2008 at 11:06 AM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

Well, those certainly are useful.

My favorite "customer" was the Indian guy who said he was going to hunt me down and kill me. Best call ever.

On Sat, Jan 5, 2008 at 2:10 PM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

lol. What am I going to do without you there?

~Bella

On Sat, Jan 5, 2008 at 11:12 AM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

You'll manage. You're a likable person.

I need to go eat lunch and get ready for work.

On Sat, Jan 5, 2008 at 2:14 PM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

Ok. Email me later.

~Bella

On Sat, Jan 5, 2008 at 11:11 PM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

How will you read it? You'll be busy going to Chicago.

On Sun, Jan 6, 2008 at 6:13 AM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

Of course I'll read it eventually. Jerkface.

~Bella

On Sun, Jan 6, 2008 at 3:17 AM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

I miss you. Good luck back at school.


	14. Walked Along

Let's try this again. I was having such a horrible time figuring out the next chapter. Bella pointed out that I could just rewrite where this chapter ended, if I wanted.

So I did. No new review responses. Just a few hundred words extra and a chunk of plot.

**Responses from Edward:**

**Lady Dragona: I am hardly an expert on poetry, so I don't know one way or another how one decides good poetry or bad poetry. That said, I am never one to hesitate to express my opinion, and your poem really didn't do anything for me.**

**I am but one person. And I will think more on what I think would improve it. In the mean time, I think many people will be interested in moving on from this chapter to the next. And I won't do that until at least five people who aren't Alice or Bella have offered constructive criticisms on Lady Dragona's poem. So get to it readers. Because I'll just wait.**

**Alice: Part of me wants to demand the same thing, but with your long paper. I doubt you could fit it into a review though.**

**Mrs. Bella Marie Cullen1901:**** I meant that I hope an eighth grader is not trying to convince someone to hop into bed with and marry them, like the relationship in Twilight. I doubt your class ever wants to be smart. And I hope you keep us all updated on if my advice horrendously backfires. Also, your attempts to annoy are to complimentary to work on me. If you wish to annoy me, I should warn you that you will have to be more annoying than a twelve year old practice trumpet at my head from two feet away. The previous chapter was written while I was ignoring that.**

**To everyone, go have fun. But review, and make sure to comment on Lady Dragona's poem. If it is ignored, or the constructive criticism is just an empty one liner, it doesn't count. And then you'll never know what happens next.**

**And to Bella, my Bella: I miss you. I look forward to seeing you more next month than I do in the current one. And I hope you are sleeping better than me right now. 3**

On Thur, Feb 14, 2008 at 11:12 PM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

Happy Valentine's Day. What did you do in your singleness?

On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 1:22 AM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

I'm still doing a problem set. I think I might go bug Paul to figure out the answers.

How did your big date with Tanya go?

~Bella

On Thur, Feb 14, 2008 at 11:30 PM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

As usual with these things, she told me how I ruined the whole thing, then had fun anyway, then still insisted I ruined it. I am not able to correctly do big dates. Especially not with my family constantly breathing down my neck.

Her complaint was that I had said I would spend all day with her, when in fact, I only spent between 11 am and 9 pm with her.

My family, of course, is of the opinion that I should not have even spent that much time with her.

On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 1:37 AM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

Well, at least you had Tanya to do stuff with. I watched Moonlight with Alice and then had to do more homework.

~Bella

On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 10:17 AM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

I know. I'm glad to have her. And we had a great time. Went to an art gallery, then kayaking in some freezing, definitely trying to kill me water. I just wish I didn't feel like I was only giving her half of a relationship. Or that she would realize why I never have time.

Also, I am spending too much time in these classes at PC thinking about the blast patterns homemade explosives would make cutting through my classmates. All the shiny little shrapnel pieces making such pretty red mist out of these idiots.

On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 10:36 AM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

They will all pay for the affront to my dignity and waste of my time that these classes are. My high school was better than this. And my high school was full of morons.

I will destroy them. This whole world will burn.

On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 1:25 PM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

Oh Edward.

~Bella

On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 11:30 AM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

You and Alice are among the few who will be spared.

On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 11:55 AM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

Seriously though, I hate this place.

* * *

On Thur, Feb 21, 2008 at 12:38 Am, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

So, my family has decided to take away the car I was being allowed to use.

On Thur, Feb 21, 2008 at 10:16 AM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

WHAT? Why? How are you supposed to do any of the things they want you to do then?

~Bella

On Thur, Feb 21, 2008 at 12:39 PM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

Well, they wanted me to come home and help with some things yesterday evening. Instead, I elected to spend it with Tanya, seeing as it was her birthday.

They disagreed with that decision rather sharply.

And as for getting around, I guess I'll just walk. It isn't more than forty minutes to school, and Newton's is even closer than that. I'll need to charge my ipod more, I suppose.

On Thur, Feb 21, 2008 at 2:48 PM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

They're ridiculous. You're ridiculous. Why didn't you just go back if they cared that much?

~Bella

On Thur, Feb 21, 2008 at 11:53 PM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

They didn't need me for any of the stuff that they wanted me to do. They didn't need me to do it right then for any of the stuff they wanted me to do. They knew exactly where I was and why, and they chose that moment deliberately.

They issued an ultimatum. I accepted the consequences it entailed. Life will not end because of lacking a vehicle.

It will just be significantly colder.

In other news, I'm starting an Amnesty International Student Group at PC. Hurray additional extra curricular thing that makes me seem like a good investment.

On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 2:12 AM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

They still seem stupid and counter productive.

~Bella

* * *

On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 1:43 PM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

You know, it should be easier to start something like this Amnesty International thing I am working on. I mean, are these fuckers against human rights or something?

In other news, I hate Tanya's friends.

On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 3:59 PM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

What are you doing that is so hard?

And sorry about her friends.

~Bella

On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 2:07 PM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

I'm sitting at a table in the front of the library trying to recruit. I've got signs, flyers, and free candy. You have to have a certain number of students express interest in the group before the school will give it any sort of recognition. And the way to prove interest is to have the ability to steal that person's identity.

And it's fine. I know I shouldn't be worried. Tanya is around people who want her all the time. I trust her.

*Sigh* It's him I don't trust.

So what's new with you?

On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 4:14 PM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

It's good that she's finding friends, right? Weren't you saying that she is too clingy and spends all her time with you?

Not much of anything new. I'm hanging out with Jacob and Sam and that crowd more, I suppose.

~Bella

On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 2:19 PM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

I guess. I just hate him. He pretty much has said he would leave his current girlfriend for Tanya. And they drink.

I should stop. I can trust her.

Haha. Oh, Sam. I will never forget when Emily just drunkenly punched him in the face.

* * *

On Fri, Mar 21, 2008 at 3:48 PM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

How are you?

~Bella

On Fri, Mar 21, 2008 at 2:01 PM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

Hating James. I can trust her. Tell me I can trust her.

And don't tell me anything. My faith is good enough without you having to make up something you know nothing about.

On Fri, Mar 21, 2008 at 4:07 PM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

I'm sorry.

~Bella

On Fri, Mar 21, 2008 at 2:08 PM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

She hates you, you know. She told me she only accepted your friend request so that she can keep track of you. You're the fulfillment of the prophetic curse that I made all those years ago.

Don't trust anything on this or facebook unless you are sure it is me, by the way.

* * *

"Hello?"

"Ed?"

Voices in the background. _"Let me talk to her."_

"I can't really talk-"

_"Give me the phone."_

_"Tanya, I'm not giving you the phone."_

"Bella, I can't really- OW!. I can't really talk now."

"Sorry."

"It's fine Bells. Bye."

_"Why are you protecting-"_

_"Why are you acting like you are seven, Tan-"_

*Click*

* * *

On Sun, Mar 23, 2008 at 10:38 AM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

Sorry I called at a bad time. Is everything ok?

~Bella

On Sun, Mar 23 2008 at 9:32 AM, Edward Cullen ******* wrote:

Everything is fucked. I have to get to church. I'll update you on my life, on facebook, via song.

* * *

Edward Cullen posted the link _youtube_ _.com/watch?v=7LcGnP3HY_A_

The Tango Maureen.


	15. Swaying in the Wind

**Notes from Edward:**

**Well, I think we all see how much you value my requests. Three people did it, as far as I can tell, and all of them at the request of Book2romantic, who kind was redeemed for posting the outtake in spite of me by actually lobbying like that.**

**MysticHorse: So how does he feel about you? Best friends is not a bad starting point for a relationship.**

**You know what? I handled all the reviews in that reposting of the outtake, didn't I? And none of you were resourceful enough to find a way to double review. Or you just didn't care.**

**Anyway, have fun. This is so much easier to write now that it is editing emails I still have instead of recreating conversations that got deleted by Tanya.**

On Sat, Apr 19, 2008 at 1:50 PM, Ed C ***** wrote:

Test 1,2,3

If anyone ever hears of this email account, it will cease to be.

So now I have a way of talking that Tanya can't see. And many interesting decisions have been reached (by me).

Talk on facebook and stuff still, but this for more confidential stuff.

I'm off to work,  
Ed

On Sat, Apr 19, 2008 at 3:56 PM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

Tell me about these interesting decisions you have reached.

~Bella

On Sun, Apr 20, 2008 at 1:34 AM, Ed C ***** wrote:

Tanya and I are dating, though, as with the whole cheating thing, all is not as it seems.

By the way, with the cheating thing, all was not as it seemed.

I am currently doing what might or might not be highly immoral. I have decided:

1) I love her.

2) I am not in love with her.

3) Loving her is enough to want the best for her and want her kept in the world.

4) She loves me. She is even in love with me.

5) Her pride is more important than that love.

6) I am a good enough manipulator to make her be better towards herself, using that love as a leverage to change what she is taking pride in.

I think I can make her take better care of herself, and eventually be happy without me. So I am going on a quest to make a new person, using some of the pieces from this one I have currently.

Wish me luck, or maybe condemn me,

Ed

On Sun, Apr 20, 2008 at 11:34 AM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

Um, I just lectured Alice last night about playing god and the like...but for some reason..I don't have problems with what you are doing..maybe because I kind of did a similar thing? I had diminished feelings for Mike for quite awhile I think, but I was not at all sure he would be ok without me, conceited idiot that I was. I'm pretty sure what youre doing is slightly immoral at least, but since you have the best of intentions...*shrug* goodluck. Sorry youre not in love, or that youre denying you are, whichever that may be.

~Bella

* * *

On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 12:54 AM, Ed C ***** wrote:

So, Tanya is incredibly pissed at me.

On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 3:01 AM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

Why?

~Bella

On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 11:33 AM, Ed C ***** wrote:

As for why Tanya was mad at me: we had dinner together. While at dinner she tells me how she tried to kill herself that afternoon, and on a separate occassion (remember when she was throwing up blood a while back?). I ratted her out to everyone except the 911 operator. And now she's pissed at me.

On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 2:18 PM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

Oh. I see. Well if it makes you feel any better I'm glad you did. But I'm sure you knew that. She must be majorly pissed.

~Bella

On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 12:33 PM, Ed C ***** wrote:

Oh, she is.

And I cannot descern any action parental action from the Denalis from over here. Which makes me think that they are a bunch of major d-bags, who are permanently on my shit list.

Seriously, someone calls you and says your daughter tried to kill herself, wouldn't you do something drastic?

So basically: FUCK!

On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 2:40 PM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

Shit. They might be on my shitlist too. Wow. How do you manage to get into such a fucked up situation...sigh. Well, on a side note...how is that major shit you were dealing with for/with a friend that you couldn't tell me about? You said hopefully it would work out...has it?

~Bella

On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 12:58 PM, Ed C ***** wrote:

Are you familiar with the theme music for looney toons?

On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 3:00 PM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

Uhh... I dunno? Am I?

* * *

On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 1:28 AM, Ed C ***** wrote:

I just spent about two and a half hours going through sometraumatic memories with Tanya. I don't know how you do memories, but I try to experience it, feel what they feel, what they felt, while they tell me the story. I'm usually pretty good at it. But with these, about 90 minutes in, I had to stop that. There was to much pain and shame and it was too terrible. And I couldn't even just snap out of it, because it was Tanya. I had to open this email, and think about you and Alice and Chicago and basically not listen for a second periodically through out the stories. It was horrible. I fully except that she was (is every now and then) suicidal. There is too much pain there. It shouldn't be possible for one person to hurt that much and not react in some terrible, overwelming way.

* * *

"Hey."

"Hey."

"Are you ok?"

"Not even close, Bells."

...

"How are things in Chicago? Anything interesting happening there?"

"Jake and I are dating."

"Huh. How'd that happen?"

"We kind of hooked up at a party and then a couple days later he asked me out."

"Isn't that a little backwards?"

"Are you accusing me of not having a normal relationship?"

"Hah, true. What else? There must be more than that for gossip."

"Tyler's dropping out for a quarter."

"Really? Why?"

"He never does the work. I have to lecture him to get him to go take exams."

"I wonder if that will end up being a more permanent drop out."

"I don't know."

"You sound tired."

"It's like four in the morning."

"I know, sorry. Go to sleep."

"I miss you."

"I miss you too. Sleep, I'll be back to you all the faster for it."

"You won't be here when I wake up, weirdo."

"You'd be impressed if I was though, right?"

"Don't get my hopes up."

"Good night."

"'Night."

On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 4:17 AM Bella Swan ****** wrote:

Speaking of memories though, apparently Mike was lying about cheating. He did so to make me hurt less when he committed suicide...but since apparently he can't anymore, he thought it was wrong to have me think such things of him...? I didn't really ask any questions since I didn't talk to him and just sat there and let him i.m. me. Blah. Haven't decided what I'm feeling, if I choose to feel anything regarding this.

~Bella

* * *

On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 5:49 PM, Ed C ***** wrote:

I'm thinking of changing my current theme song to Maroon 5's "Goodnight, Goodnight."

Do something entertaining to distract me from what I will be doing soon.

On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 8:24 PM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

Watch Moonlight. There are new eps :) I will work on coming up with something entertaining. At least you have a roomie and are coming back. I will ask josh what room he got...maybe we'll be near each other. Oh entertaining lil tidbit, I was telling Alice how we don't need a cot for you because you can just sleep in my bed and I think she was jealous/uncomfortable with the whole thing. She was originally was like, I guess we could shove our beds together (jealousy) but realized she needs her own space to sleep and was like "I guess that defeats the purpose then.." lol. I was amused at the whole thing, and tried a bit to console her with the idea that I wouldn't be in here at least some of the times you were sleeping over..but that didn't seem to make her much happier. Best of luck dear.

~Bella

PS everyone I told about the Mike development thinks he is a psychopath and that its good I dumped him.

On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 9:47 PM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

Alice and I agree on saying damn songwriters for providing such perfect outbursts of angst to suit any possible situation. I personally am surprised at your ability to find such perfect songs...

~Bella

* * *

On Fri, May 9, 2008 at 3:09 PM, Ed C ***** wrote:

So, since I'm a coward, but manipulative, here are my plans in the near future:

This weekend I am going to San Diego. Tanya is coming also, so I will be out of contact until Sunday night.

Next week, I plan to dump Tanya, but since I'm a coward, I'm going to do it in front of a mental health professional. I have two appointments set up with Tanya and some psych-therapy types already, and maybe more in the mix.

So basically, I am a dirtbag. And I hate this. And I wish I was in Chicago, rather than here.


	16. I'm Trying

On Fri, May 9, 2008 at 5:54 PM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

Are the two of you going together? Together alone? Not sure thats a good idea...but goodluck and don't feel like shit. Or do, but not more than necessary.

~Bella

On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 3:37 PM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

So?

~Bella

On Wed, May 14, 2008 at 11:14 PM, Ed C ***** wrote:

The weekend was great. Then I got out of Tana's company, and immediately felt like a horrible liar, and like I really needed to take a shower. Once I was not playing the role, I felt like such a dick.

So I told Tanya earlier today that I want to break up. She's trying to persuade me not to. She wanted me to call her before bed, but either she is asleep or she forgot that I put her phone on silent earlier.

Life is sucky, but maybe looking up.

And how are you?

On Thu, May 15, 2008 at 2:17 PM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

Yay for the maybe looking up. Took you awhile to get back to me, was a bit on edge, not particularly worried about anything, just like (and was used to) knowing what was going on. I'm ok. Same old, same old. Drama, but nothing particularly interesting...that's a lie haha. But whatever. Cramps suck. You misspelled Tanya's name, which gave me some perverse amusement. Anyhow, ttyl. take care Ed.

~Bella

* * *

On Tues, May 27, 2008 at 9:07 PM, Ed C ***** wrote:

I wish your good mood was infectious.

On Tues, May 27, 2008 at 11:08 PM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

Yeah well. I'm good at pretending. Miss you.

~Bella

On Tues, May 27, 2008 at 11:12 PM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

Sigh, I hate my moodiness and how it can totally depend on those around me/close to me. Screw you all.

~Bella

On Tues, May 27, 2008 at 9:17 PM, Ed C ***** wrote:

Mine too. God, you should see it here, balanced between Tanya and my family. Too much happiness from Tanya would make them suspicsious, plus I don't want to make her completely happy, plus my family is crazy and moody and demanding. Its actually kinda funny.

On Tues, May 27, 2008 at 11:19 PM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

That sounds depressing.

~Bella

On Tues, May 27, 2008 at 9:21 PM, Ed C ***** wrote:

I think its funny. And poor Tanya! Why she puts up with me, I know entirely, but I still think she's crazy for it.

On Tues, May 27, 2008 at 11:25 PM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

So...what's going on with that? She doesn't accept the breakup, so you are not really broken up, right? Basically?

~Bella

On Tues, May 27, 2008 at 9:38 PM, Ed C ***** wrote:

Oh, she gets really upset every time she tries to press her luck. I am not nearly as kind or Tanya oriented as I once was. Its heartbreaking to watch. Yesterday, when I wouldn't talk with her at one point, she sort of lost all direction in her life, eventually went home and cried for about an hour and a half.

I told her I would re evalute when I was leaving for Chicago, but that right now we were not dating. So far, I see no reason to go back to dating.

I still feel like such a jerk.

On Tues, May 27, 2008 at 11:45 PM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

Sorry dear. Tis quite unfortunate. Ah well, you'll be here soon!

~Bella

On Tues, May 27, 2008 at 9:53 PM, Ed C ***** wrote:

Is it wrong that I like her strong emotions? I just like the way they feel so much more than anyone else's. I would almost say they taste good, but no one sense gets it exactly right.

* * *

On Sat, May 31, 2008 at 10:31 PM, Ed C ***** wrote:

So, Alice go to sleep early? Or just not check email as religiously as me?

Anyhow, I'm lonely, so PAY ATTENTION TO ME!

Sorry, long day. Back to normal now.

On Sun, Jun 1, 2008 at 12:35 AM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

Tell me about your day. Alice is mia. She isn't in her room, so I don't know where she is.

~Bella

On Sat, May 31, 2008 at 10:41 PM, Ed C ***** wrote:

Just the usual. Talking with Tanya a bunch, hearing about her abusive family and trying to convince her to move out while she makes excuses and I want to KILL THEM. And she insists that she is only able to go to therapy if I go with her.

On Sun, Jun 1, 2008 at 12:46 AM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

Oh Ed. I don't know what to tell you. I wish there were a way to make her stand up for herself...she is an adult for christ's sake. I instinctively just want to swoop down there and save the day, which is clearly unrealistic :( I'm not really sure what to say to make you feel better, but maybe it is the telling that is therapeutic? That's how it works for me..so I'm always here to listen if you need/want. Always.

Is there a reason such things are still occurring with Tanya? Isn't she like...20? I have to confess I never really considered such things extending past one's teenage years...I don't know. Blah. Take care Ed. I'm mentally hugging you and holding your hand.

~Bella

On Sat, May 31, 2008 at 11:08 PM, Ed C ***** wrote:

You know what would be theraputic? Being high school me. If these people would have been someone who tried this back at high school, where I was able to do whatever I wanted, they'd have got what's coming to them. I don't care anymore that Tanya would be upset at me hurting them, at this point the problem is that I have no way of extracting revenge without either getting her to testify (not gonna happen) or ending up in prison. I just wish one of them would try something while I was there. They are always on there best behavior with me around, keeping this sort of bullshit "in the family." I would kill them. I've been fantasizing about knocking out a person who shall remain nameless, then kicking them in the chest till they start coughing up blood. At which point I would kick them in the head a few times. Its very tough to just sit here, when swift, violent justice needs to be carried out so desperately. And yet here I sit.

On Sun, Jun 1, 2008 at 1:12 AM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

:( Too bad silly little things like consequences affect you now...Tanya was on your facebook I'm pretty sure, given what was posted on her wall by your account..but I'm not sure, I guess it could be you blatantly ignoring my ims...wish I were there or you were here...

~Bella

On Sun, Jun 1, 2008 at 11:11 PM, Ed C ***** wrote:

Yeah, that was her. She told me about it too. She was trying to upset you, make you think I was ignoring you. I told her you probably guessed, but I'm not sure she believes me.

* * *

On Sun, Jun 8, 2008 10:42 AM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

What do you think about throwing love away? About..knowing there is a possibility of love by being with someone, but not really going after it, because you are with someone else? Eh?

~Bella

On Sun, Jun 8, 2008 at 10:40 AM, Ed C ***** wrote:

I think about throwing love away all the time. But rarely in that context.

Here are my thoughts though: just go with your instincts. If you are with someone, but do not love them, I expect your instincts are screaming that you will regret not going for the love. If on the other hand, you love both, then who better to determine your own best course to happiness than you? I give you the advice that I received when I had to choose which parent to spend time with: if you're going to upset someone you care about either way, you might as well choose the one that makes you the happiest. If they really care about you, that's what they want anyhow.

On Sun, Jun 8, 2008 1:13 PM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

I guess. It can be hard I would imagine. What context do you think about it in?

And why are you up so early?

~Bella

On Sun, Jun 8, 2008 11:18 AM, Ed C ***** wrote:

Tanya.

And I am usually up this early on Sundays. I just am also usually in Church. I skipped today.

On Sun, Jun 8, 2008 1:32 PM, Bella Swan ****** wrote:

Sowwy.

At least you'll be back up soon.

~Bella

**Comments from Edward: You all, you have no idea all the things you missed. These emails, we would send flurries back and forth, every day. I just went through months of them. You did not get all the gossip, the inside jokes, the discussions of books and shows and people and Alice. (Alice, you are one arrogant little shit. Do you remember saying how you think your gift is more pervasive, that you are "more" gifted than me or Bells? I just re read all those emails. And am once again reminded of the truth. You're less confident, and so your gift and everything that it brings frightens you so much more than it does any of the rest of us.)**

**Anyway, wow, so many memories. I rarely remember things from then, but going through all this, thinking about what's coming up... *shudder* Not the best of time, my readers. Not the best of times at all.**

**Lady Dragona: Fanfiction was the first support base I ever developed. Tell strangers my issues online. Then eventually work up to telling real people. That was how it went for me.**

**Mrs. Bella Marie Cullen1901: How do things change just because I broke up with her? She and I were still the most important person in each others lives. She still needed me. I still felt her pain more acutely than I did anything else in my life. I still loved her.**

**Bella, the one that I love: I miss you and can't wait to see you. Hope you like it, as you know I am more concerned with your opinion of this story than anyone else's save my own. Also, good lord, I lied all the time! Isn't life better now that I don't lie to you? Less than three.**


	17. Musical Interlude

I felt a little like Captain Jack Sparrow, flying back in like this. Funny though, Chicago would have made a crappy ship. No where near an ocean, just that cold, filthy lake.

But that's what Chicago was to me. It was freedom. It was escape.

I have one friend, Lauren, who is always talking shit about Chicago. One problem she has with it, with any city, is the way you can't see the stars.

But when you look down over a city, it's more sparkling than any night sky. It's just a glittering ocean, constantly shifting, and not just filled with some great void, or some distant light to wish on. Full of people with hopes and dreams and stories. Humans make a night sky.

A quick hop on the 55 bus and I was back home. Funny concept, home. Is it where your heart is? What if you don't have one?

A phone call, of course. Back on the phone that doesn't exist. "Hi, Love."

"Hi." One of her quieter periods then. These days, either Tanya talks a mile a minute, or she hardly talks at all. We sit in silence for a bit, using up batteries but not costing any other money.

"How are you?" I finally ask.

"Tired. I miss you." Another pause. "How was your flight?"

"Shockingly on time."

"What are you going to do today?"

"I'll probably just see who's in town. How about you, Love?" The bus pulled past Stagg Field. (The new one, of course. They tore down the real thing decades ago.) I pulled the wire for my stop.

"I think I might try to go to bed early." She often made that sort of claim. Rarely ever followed through on it though.

"You do sound tired, Love." But then again, you've sounded tired for months. Were we ever not this tired? "This is my stop. Can I call you back later?"

"Can you talk to me a little more?"

"Sure. Let me just get my bags off the bus." I hooked my hand through one bag, and kind of tossed it off the bus. The rolling case was easier. I'd feel pretty stupid if another bus stopped for me while I was sitting at this bench at the bus stop, but I was in a lazy mood, and wasn't going to carry a garment bag, suit case, and my rather stuffed laptop bag with one hand.

"Ok, back." I heard her let out a breath, and wondered why I had left her. She needed me. She was too fragile. The only reason that she wouldn't break at the next little thing was that she had already shattered. I needed to be there to try to hold her together, and instead I had ran away back to Chicago. I had sold her out. Literally, since leaving her behind gave me the thousands of dollars of my family's money to pay for my school. How much was a person worth? Turned out, to me they were worth about a quarter of a million dollars.

I think I was a very different person coming back to Chicago. I am not sure I could say I lost my innocence. I don't know if I was ever innocent like most people view the word. But I lost my faith in my family.

My family. Overbearing. Annoying. Controlling. But above all, I had always believed, good. Even as my mother and father had stabbed each other in the back in custody hearings when I was a child, I had still believed them good. I believed it when we went to church, and listened to sermons about how we should help those less fortunate than us. I believed it when the whole family volunteered at school, at the homeless shelter, at the library. Always so concerned for community, for others. I had been sure that they were good people.

Until the day that I needed them. The day that I came home and said that the girl I loved was being hurt, abused. That she was suicidal and needed people to support her and look out for her.

And they did not offered to take her in. Not even close. No, they told me to make sure she didn't come anywhere near my younger siblings, how an unstable person like her could end up hurting them. And how I should avoid her, try not to spend time with her.

Avoid her? I loved her! This wasn't about safety! This was about family. About obligation. About doing what was right. Everything they had ever drilled into me said that I could not abandon this girl. That _we, _me and my family, could not abandon someone who needed our help and that we _actually could help._

Had they always been this way? I guess I should have expected no different from the people who raised a coward like me. But I had been surprised.

"I miss you, Ed." I heard the unspoken part. _I miss you because you keep the nightmares away._

"I miss you too, Love." And I did. I liked holder as she fell asleep, knowing that I was doing something real, something that actually helped. Nightmares I could fight, if nothing else.

"You'll come back to me, won't you?"

"Of course, Tan." Promises were all I had.

"And we'll date again, won't we? You'll take me back?"

"I will. You'll be able to move up here next year, everything will be better."

"Promise?" she sniffed.

"I promise."

"And you love me?" People shouldn't beg for such things.

"Of course, Tanya. Only you. Only ever you."


	18. The Same

**Notes From Edward:**

**Thanks for the compliment, Hannahbee27.**

**Lady Dragona: The sad thing is that my family are still just about the most genuine, truly good people I know. What does that tell you of the world?**

**CullenLove678: I will restrain myself, because apparently Book got rather threatened last time I responded to a review like yours. I think the person thought I was specifically referring to them when talking about my disgust for the Twilight fandom and the irrational hatred that some of you seem to have for Tanya and independent women.**

**So let me try to do this via something closer to Socratic method: why do you want me dating Bella? Is it better for me? Bella and I, at this point, were just in incredibly committed relationships with other people. I don't know if you've been in anything like them. I don't know you at all. But it seems strange that you think there is something good about me abandoning the woman I love to hop into bed with someone I just met. I was best friend with Tanya for two years before we even went on a date, and that doesn't matter? How would that make me feel about myself, do you think, if I could not exist without someone supporting me? If I threw Tanya away, not because I had helped her all I could but because I just liked some other girl better? Am I Romeo, to be so fickle with my affection?**

**It wouldn't be better for Tanya, would it? How many people knew all the horrible shit in her past and didn't run away from her? Oh, one. Nope, wait, it dropped down to zero because even I abandoned her. Do you hate her because she had a hard life and I had promised her that she could lean on me?**

**Or do you think it would be better for Bella if I dump Tanya and date her? Bella who was just scarred by a guy rather similar to me. Bella who had seen my resolve crumble. Bella who knew how I betrayed Tanya. Bella who knew that I lied, all the time, whenever it was convenient to me. Would she have had any real faith in me? Or would it just be her taking what little she could get, thinking she hardly mattered at all?**

**Really, this is not fiction. This is a fictionalized account of my life. There is no higher power or destiny controlling us. We are the powers that be, and the only thing that makes you think Tanya and I couldn't be happy together is your own prejudice.**

**And I have decided I will also be recommending stories. They're at the bottom.**

Summer session. Normally I would feel awkward going to school in the summer, but hey, I can hardly claim I'm not some screw up that needed to make up classes in the summer, could I?

One side effect of Summer session is that only one dorm was open. Max Palevsky. It's a complex of three dorms, actually, rectangles that are bright colors. Oranges, purples, yellows, and all those other colors that really don't belong at all in the dreary soul crushing wonder that is Uchicago Neo Gothic.

I was in room 304 in Max West, the least convenient of the three. On the plus side, it had a pretty good fooseball table. And while I may have hated just about everything about these dorms, they had extra long twin beds.

Other than that, everything seemed so much worse than in Pierce Tower. And Pierce was like 50 years old, while these had been completed only a few years ago. The room lay out, with two double, connected to a common area that led to a bathroom and the hall way, was extra locks and doors that kept you from being able to talk to people as they walked past. The lounges that had TV's and tables were hidden off in weird corners instead of being a hub that all the rooms were situated around. And the air conditioning was running full blast all the time. What did they have it set to, like sixty?

I walked back out of my room pretty quickly after dropping my stuff. Unless I was wearing my coat or hiding under a blanket, I would not want to be inside there for long.

Shortly after I got outside, my phone went off. Only a text though. And oddly enough, _not _from Tanya.

Not from anyone I had given my phone number to.

_You going to party at dianas?_

_-Tyler_

I tapped a few numbers, and after a ring the person on the other end picked up.

"Hello?"

"Bells, did you give Tyler my phone number?"

"Yeah, and why didn't you give it to him?"

"Phone that does not exist, remember?" It was just sort of the principle of it.

"Oh please. Tanya actually likes him. She probably wants you to have more guy friends. _You _only give the number out to girls."

"The girls are you and Alice."

"Well, guess you'll have to refuse all his calls then." I suppose she's right. The damage, what little there is, really can't be undone at this point.

"How was the flight back?"

"Liberating. Are you in town? Or anyone?"

"Tyler just got an apartment with some people I don't know. A few people in your year are around with apartments."

"Where are you?"

"I'm at my aunt's place. She lives in Oak Park."

"I have no idea where that is but trying to tell me won't help. When do you get in?"

"I have stuff tomorrow. And there's some sort of get together at Diana's."

_I guess I'm going._

_

* * *

_My roommate turned out to be a large, hairy, and good natured fellow who had just graduated from St John's. Billy, or so he claimed he was named, was here doing physics work. I was not doing anything nearly that interesting. Just taking a core biology class, a Spanish class to get my language requirement out of the way, and an economics class.

But I planned to see him very little. Roommates and me did not mix. Not because I failed to get along with them. Literally, I just never spent any time around them, and as a result we never mixed.

I did get unlimited squares a day for myself at Bartlett, the more upscale dining hall on campus. And the fat guy on the burrito counter looked like he was familiar with all kinds of food. Shortly after a decent burrito, I got one of my frequent calls from Tanya. It was short. She was forced cheerful, I was supportively reflecting it while she started driving to one of her classes. She finally hung up when she was about to turn into the parking lot.

And then, oddly enough, I got another call from Tanya.

"Hello again," I answered cheerfully.

"Hi, Ed." Silence. "Ummm... what was I doing just a minute ago?"

"Going to class?"

"I was?" She sounded.. surprised?

"Yeah, you were about to turn into the parking lot."

"Oh. Ok. Thanks. Oh, here's a sticky note I left myself with directions on it. Thanks."

"Your welcome." What did I do?

"Bye Love."

"Bye Tan."

That was weird. But she's a weird girl, and she's been through a lot. And I had other things to do at the moment. Namely, Bella was getting out of her classes right now.

She was actually here for something that paid her. Not quite a job, mostly her attending math classes and having to do some sort of project at the end. I managed to find her outside of Eckhart, the math department's building.

"Hey." I'm sure I seemed all sorts of awkward, loitering around waiting for her, but I assure you, I never feel it.

She smiled when she saw me, and I wondered if I was smiling. I used to smile all the time, when I was younger. Now I think I hardly smile at all.

Neither of us ran. We might have walked quickly and hugged. I was certainly glad to see her. The one friend I really talked to about things. There was Alice, of course, but it always felt like I would break her if I let her feel everything that I felt.

"Glad to be back?" She didn't even need to ask.

"I hear there's some sort of party thing tonight," I retort instead.

"Yeah, I might have heard about that."

"What are you doing till then?"

She shrugged.

"Care to see Max West?"

"I've seen it before." Of course, not being as antisocial as me, most people have probably seen the most populous dorms on campus.

"But have you seen it when my room was there?"

We walked off, arm in arm. "How's Jacob?"

"Back in Boston doing some sort of internship. How's Tanya?"

"Uhhhg. Let's not talk about it."

* * *

Hours later, along with a couple cross words, a really short tour, and some dinner, it was time for that "party."

It wasn't really a party. Not that Diana and her roommates didn't try. There was music. There was a room set up for dancing. There was booze, though I didn't drink any besides a sip of Bella's because she insisted it wasn't that bad. (Hint: not that bad means that it isn't good.)

Diana was popular too. She was nice and in my year. I only ever had conversations with her during orientation or finals week in the past, but she was an ok person. Pretty too, if you happen to be into Chinese Canadians.

But there was no one in town. A good standard to apply is, if I know the name of everyone there, it isn't a party. I knew all the twelve people there. Well, ok, not Diana's third roommate, but if she was there she stayed in her room.

Still, it was nice, seeing all the old Thompsonites that were around. Getting asked where I'd been, explaining that I was not dead while still giving as little detail as possible and pushing more blame onto my family than I probably had any right to. Not that I didn't think it was my fault. No, I just felt like having people be as upset with my family as I was.

And when it was late, when the whole shindig started to wind down, and my phone rang, I didn't answer.

Soon the only people still up were me, Bella, and Diana.

"You can sleep on the futon," Diana offered. "It folds down into a bed."

"Thanks. I told my aunt I was staying with friends here. Sorry I didn't run it by you before."

"Don't worry, just let me clear it off." Currently, the couch form futon had a bag of clothes and books and movies all over it. Moving was only sort of finished here in Hyde Park, and we all chipped in to move everything onto tables and shelves around the living room.

"I'll keep these," Diana added, holding up the bag of clothes. "And I think I'm heading to bed."

"Mind if I stay a while?" Like... all night, since you stole Bella away by letting her sleep here when she should have been "forced" to spend the night in my bed?

"Sure," she turned back to Bella. "The door locks automatically, so when you leave in the morning you'll have a hard time getting back in."

"Well, I have a lecture at nine anyway."

"Ok. 'Night you guys." A click of a knob latching, and suddenly Bella and I were alone again.

"Were you actually going to leave?"

I shook my head. "I figure I'll take the couch. It's pretty comfy. And I'll feel a bit strange sleeping with you on someone else's futon."

"Oh." Don't look so down, _you're _the one who asked to stay here for the night. "Well, I'm going to go change. It is like two o'clock."

"Yeah." I shut off all the lights but the one by the futon while she was gone, and laid down on the couch. She came back eventually, clad in black shorts and a t shirt. I checked while pretending to try to sleep. After a moment she shut off the light and laid down. It was quiet except for the occasional car along fifty fifth street.

There's no way she was asleep. Neither of us were. Not that quickly. We were just laying there, me on the couch and her on the futon. Separated by about as many feet as time zones had kept us apart before.

"Why are you so far away?" she said. Typical, she was the one brave enough to make the first move.

"Why won't you ever know," I whispered back in the darkness.

"What?"

I rolled off the couch, as comfy as it was, and felt my way over to the futon. "Better?"

She pulled my arm over her, even though Diana's apartment had no AC. "Better."

**Story Rec's:**

**Another Sad Love Song by Arica Lynn**

**My Best Friend the Klepto by Halawia**


	19. Unhappy

**Responses from Edward: Feel free to take swipes at my family. I tend to do it some myself.**

**And I hope you won't take offense when I pray that you do stuff to try to change the problems you see in society. We all sit around and talk too much.**

**Honestly though, my family didn't have all the information. They were laboring under the delusion that her family was not functionally retarded or blatantly evil.**

**And you might have noticed a crucial plot element starting last chapter.**

As it turned out, Bella tended to sleep at her aunt's house. I didn't know this aunt, but I was quickly coming to dislike the woman. She was seriously limiting what I had planned to do that summer. Instead of being able to spend the majority of my time in physical contact with Bella, I spent very little of it like that.

Not that I didn't see her. I saw her almost every day. But I had somehow expected us to continue right where we had left off. Instead I was picking up new hobbies, like watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and spending more time with other people. Random kids in my dorm sometimes, or Thompsonites that I had some passing like of. People that I had been friends with and people that I had barely spent any time with became bigger parts of my life as the summer went on.

And some things stayed the same.

"Hello?" A call before dinner, and now, a call as I was going to meet up with some people.

"Hi." She sounded exhausted. As usual.

"Tired, Love?" Old habit and truth mixed to make it ok.

"Today was horrible. I accidentally stood up under someone's planter and have had a headache since." I had a hard head, and was never much phased by any of the impacts that happened in my day to day life. Tanya was hard headed, and refused to go to the doctor despite the fact that she might have a concussion. "And now I'm trying to fall asleep and I hate it here."

"I'm still glad you moved out." A little over a week after I left, Tanya had moved out of her parents house. A friend of hers from work had offered her a place in their sun room, if Forks had such things, and she had taken her car and the puppy that she had recently purchased and a couple bags of clothes and rid herself of those cretins she insisted were a family. She also had taken a job with some lawn care crew, which I guess paid better than part time work at a day care center, but it forced her to get up early when I would have rather had her sleeping in all the time. She was also signed up for some classes at PC, so that was a little better too. Still, it was all wrong. She did it to try to get me to come back, not because she wanted a better life. Well, she did want a better life, but the only better life she imagined was me and I didn't think I could do it. I loved her, but every moment of the day I thought about how I had failed her. Failed to protect her. Failed to have faith in her. Failed to get her out and get her help. And then I had run away.

What is it that we are supposed to do with our lives? Is there some greater purpose? Some sites online will tell you the purported meaning of your name, and I had looked them up one day when I was younger. Edward, apparently, mean wealthy guard, the protector of kings and noblemen. But riches and wealth denoted something different back then, when names were being made, and I decided that Edward simply mean good protector. That was what I was, a guardian for my people. When they needed someone to stand between them and any attack, no matter how strong or fierce or relentless, I would be there. My will would be greater, my hand quicker, my mind sharper, and I would save them. But when the woman I loved needed me, I wasn't there. Not only did I not live up to my ideals, I didn't even live up to my name.

"You wouldn't like it if you saw it, Ed. They're... well, they're filthy. They leave food out everywhere and never do the dishes or vacuum or-"

"Your family doesn't live there, so it is infinitely better."

"It's not." We both sat there silently for a moment before she spoke again. "I think I might move back home."

"What?" I froze. "Why would you do that?"

"Well, my uncle and my mom are moving out." Her voice cracked as she said it. "I think my parents are going to get a divorce."

Fine with me. Maybe they wouldn't be such bastards if they were apart. "Any idea why?"

For some reason, despite them having split up and gotten back together multiple times, despite them being horrible enough to drive her away, it still upset her when they did this. "I don't know, Ed. They've been unhappy for a while."

She stopped short of the accusation I knew was coming. "You think you had something to do with it, don't you, Tan?"

"I mean, they fight about-"

"You know, when I was young, I got lots of councilors at school, and the big message they always tried to drill into me was that it wasn't my fault my parents got divorced. And it isn't yours either."

"I'm so hard to live with. I start fights and I-"

"And you move out, so if that was the problem, they would be together now. Those douche bags never treated you like a daughter, there's no way they can claim that you somehow caused this." And here we went.

"They paid for me to go to school. My dad just bought me a truck! My mom used to work as a janitor just so she could get the tuition discount to send me to private school! They did-"

"Money isn't love. They should have been there when you were a kid. They should have ..." They should have protected you. They should have helped you.

"I don't want to argue about this. I've got a headache. Can I just go to sleep?"

"Yeah. Sure, you can." She could be forgiven for not noticing my sudden deflation. I spent a lot of time hiding things from her. "I love you."

"I love you too, Ed." I heard her gathering herself, marshaling what tiny amount of hope and optimism she had left. "Will you come visit me?"

At the end of the day, she was it. That perfect drug, making me feel needed and wanted and loved. Back before her my life had been dull, a string of meaningless accomplishments, but she made me feel. Made me alive. Of course I gave in. "Yeah. I will, love. I promise."

"Ok. I can't wait to see you."

"Me either."

"I love you." I know.

"I love you too. Go to sleep."

"Ok." For once, a click without any sort of struggle. I resumed walking towards Alec's apartment.

Alec was a year ahead of me, and had lived on my floor when I was a freshman. He was a hilariously pitiful person, and he had a nice apartment for hanging out in now that he had moved out of the dorm. So a few of us were planning on meeting at his place for a bit and watching the Olympics. We didn't know what was on, and I didn't know who was going, but that was pretty irrelevant since most of them would just drink and I would try to convince them that they should give me food.

I walked around the back of the place, climbing over a black metal fence because I never liked having to bother to knock. Before I could start bounding up the stairs, something made me pause.

Specifically, vibrations in my pants pocket.

"Hello?"

"Help," came a whispered voice. Tanya's whispered voice.

"What? What's the matter love?" We'd just spoken and she'd been fine! What happened in the two minutes that it took me to walk the rest of the way?

"There's something in my room." She kept whispering.

"Well, do you want to me to call for help? The police or something?"

"No! Don't hang up." She got a little louder for that. "Plus, I don't want to get anyone in trouble."

That sounded like her, even if it was whispered oddly. "Can you tell me anything about whatever is in your room?"

"I think it's trying to eat me."

"I... what?"

"I felt it's mouth on my foot earlier, but I kicked at it and it went away."

Mouth on her foot? "Is it furry?"

"I don't know. Maybe?"

"I think it might be your dog. Cody. Little huskie puppy that you got a couple weeks ago?"

"I have a puppy?" She didn't sound so scared any more. Now she sounded ecstatic.

"Just turn on the light and look for yourself." This was a supremely unsettling conversation.

"No, I don't want to wake anyone up." I heard her moving around, presumably in the dark. "It is a puppy! What did you say his name was?"

"_You _named him Cody. Love, what's going on?"

"I'm ok now. I was just scared when I felt something biting me."

"Yeah, I could tell that. Why don't you remember your own dog?"

"He's mine?" she gasped. "Really mine?"

I was talking to a five year old. "Yes, he's yours. I said that just a minute ago."

"Oh." There was a pause. "Why's your name secret?"

"What? It's not. It's Edward." Now I was pleading. "You know that."

"Oh, yeah." Thank god. "Your last name though. The phone says your name is Ed Secret."

Or not. "It's my secret phone. Just for you to call me on."

"Sweet! Like spies! Are you a spy?"

"No..." I honestly had no idea what to do in this situation. "I'm your boyfriend."

"Really? When did I get a boyfriend?"

"If you don't know any of this, how did you even call me?"

"I just hit send on the phone. You're who it called."

"Because you were just talking with me, like, ten minutes ago or something."

"Are you sure?"

I wandered back out of the gate, no longer so concerned with the party or whatever the fuck it was. "Yes, I'm sure. Please tell me this is some sort of joke."

"I don't think it is. But I'm pretty tired. Thanks for telling me about my puppy." The phone clicked, hanging up for the second time today. Usually I had to hang up on her.

"What the fuck just happened?"

**Story recommendations:**

**In the Days of Auld Lang Syne: Fix You by Feisty Y. Beiden**

**Little Miss Sunshine by MyVampireBunny**


	20. Can't You

**Notes from Edward:**

**Mrs. Bella Marie Cullen1901: Her memory always comes back at some later time... so far at least.**

**CullenLove678: Listen. For a really long time, things between me and Bella were really complicated. This story is now quite in my past, so I know how it ends. And I know that I love Bella.**

**Perhaps you were thrown off by the fact that I love Tanya, and compared her to a perfectly crafted drug. Drugs are bad, mmmk? People are much better than drugs, and Bella is a person who is perfectly designed to entice me.**

They say that you can never remove this sort of black mark. There is no certificate that says you are sane now, you're cured of depression or schizophrenia. With a lot of mental health problems, the best you can hope is that you will be in remission or some such thing.

Years from now, if people wanted to, they could dig this up. If I ever run for something, they could ask, what were you doing there? What did you need to get treated for?

"Mr. Cullen?" called the woman at the front desk.

I ditched the magazine I had been paging. "Yes?"

"You can go up now. Dr. Peterson will see you." I looked up the stairs she had gestured at.

"You'll need to go up to the third floor," she added.

"Good thing I paused," I muttered to myself. Talking to people about Tanya's problems was still a weird and nerve wracking experience for me. And I wasn't exactly feeling great about it as I climbed those stairs. As I passed the second floor, I wondered if she had left any other directions out, but at the third floor, directly in front of me, was a door that read Dr. Peterson. No listing of a first name or degrees. Maybe that wasn't even his name, and everyone just used this office to talk to the crazies so we couldn't hunt them down for revenge as easily.

I knocked on the door. "Come in."

I took a seat, glancing around at books and framed degrees and pictures. It seemed a pretty normal office, all in all. "Dr. Peterson?"

"That's me."

I shifted around in my seat. "Well, hi."

"So what brings you in," he glanced down at the paper. "Edward?"

I squirmed. Talking to people wasn't my strong point. No, that's not it. Asking for help, truthfully, was not my strong point. "I'm not actually here for myself. I'm here about a ... about a friend."

_I swear I'm not crazy, doc. I need the medicine for a friend of mine. _I wonder how often Student Counselling and Resource Services got that sort of weird line about alcoholism or embarrassing mental health problems.

"What's wrong with your friend then?" I'm sure he was trained on being mellow and easy going. Taught to always keep that calm.

"Well, she's having these episodes where she can't remember things."

Dr. Peterson, the grey haired man behind the desk, shifted slightly. "Is there any drinking or drug use going on when this happens?"

I shook my head, flipping between confident and vulnerable or any million other things that don't seem quite right to be acting in this situation. "Not to my knowledge. I've seen her like that from drinking, and it's something different. Like, she'll think she's herself when she was younger, and won't remember anything that has happened for some time since whatever age she thinks she is."

He made a slight humming noise as he thought for a moment. "How old is the person?"

"Twenty. My age." If she was old I could diagnose Alzheimers myself, thanks doc. "She is a recovering alcoholic."

"Hmmmmm."

"And I think she has suffered more than one undiagnosed concussion."

"Well, that doesn't sound good."

"No, hence me being here." He scribbled something down on the paper in front of him.

"Could I meet with this person? I don't think I can make much of a diagnosis without seeing her. And I certainly can't prescribe any treatment." If only I could. I had dragged her to a couple counselling sessions, but without me there Tanya wouldn't go to them. Lots of excuses. Time demands, not needing them, the sessions making her so upset that she couldn't drive herself home after them, the psychiatrist woman looking like some sort of human frog hybrid.

"She's not in Chicago, unfortunately, or I would bring her by. She just calls me occasionally when she is like that." And when she's not like that.

"Could you tell me more about these episodes?"

"Well, I think they tend to happen when other people aren't around. More often at night. But that might just be a side effect of her tending to call me more if no one is around. Or maybe people manage to snap her out of it by reminding what she was doing." And maybe I should tell the doctor what I know, rather than speculating without end. "And there's not any consistency about what she remembers, or what period of her life she thinks she's in. She always recovers though. I don't think one has lasted more than half an hour."

And I could see it in his eyes. This whole interview was pointless.

* * *

The SCRS is located right by one of the laughable frats at the University of Chicago. I've heard that they shout at the people coming out sometimes, and I really hoped that they would do it to me. I would teach those ass holes to mock crazy people.

Maybe that was just the frustration talking though. The advice was always the same. Get her to go to a doctor. Did they think I hadn't tried that? Did they think I visited them by myself for fun?

I made sure to crush anything that made a crinkling noise on the sidewalk as I went to my nextappointment. Not that the person I was meeting could help either.

The Regenstein library is this horrible, soul sucking structure. Everything about it's black grey, blocky structure makes you think of the Empire, from Star Wars, or some other suitably evil regimented group. But if you go up a couple floors, and head to the back of it, you'll find tall windows, with comfy chairs in front of them. They over look a tiny little garden, with trees and flowers. I've seen rabbits running around in it, a tiny sanctuary surrounded by concrete.

And on the third floor, looking out over the grass, was a brown haired girl, waiting for me.

She'd pulled two of the chairs to face each other, and I dropped into the one that her feet were in. "Hey."

Bella just smiled as I kicked off my shoes and put my feet up by her.

"What's on?" I gestured up towards her headphones. She pulled them out.

"Castle." I rolled my eyes. The latest obsession for all those super into Firefly. It basically was just an excuse to watch Nathan Fillion for forty five minutes every week. Not that I didn't watch it with her sometimes. But the library kept me from doing it with any regularity. Plus, in a final strike against it, the embarrassingly awful show had a relative of mine for an executive producer. "How did it go at the SCRS?"

I sighed. "About like you'd expect. They say I should find some way to get her to go to a doctor, and that I really can't do anything else."

Besides never sleep because I'm worrying. Besides fielding calls at all hours of the day.

"Sorry." She spun around to sit the other way, and while it was a bit cramped, we were both thin enough to fit in the one chair. And the crampedness was a plus. It let me watch a brief clip of a couple masked people fencing, but Bella quickly switched the screen to a crossword puzzle.

Being a faster typist than me, and the owner of the computer, I honestly just let her fill in most of the words while I just appreciated having her right by me. Eventually she started hitting some she didn't immediately get, and I started helping.

The problem with that is it led to talking. And talking led to discussions about life.

"What are you going to do when summer session ends?" It was a valid question to ask of a friend who is going to legally have no place to live during the month between the end of one quarter of school and the beginning of another. The thing was I didn't want to talk about it.

But there I went. "Tyler and Alec said I could crash on their couch until the dorms opened up."

"And you're just going to sit around for a month." Sure, why not? You weren't going to be in town.

"I might have told Tanya I would visit her." No, there's not actually a reason to hide my face in her hair after I say that, but I do it anyway. Any excuse to press myself against her.

"Do you actually want to go?" Or maybe there was. Maybe Bella could hide me from my own thoughts.

"Yes," I admitted, suddenly letting all the exhaustion show through. "I do."

But it's not that simple. What I want is never that easy, is it? I want to help her. I want the warm, needed feeling she give me. I want not to be so addicted. I want to be around my friends in Chicago. I want her to be better. I want the calm reassurance that I have right now, hiding against someone much smaller than me.

I want to not want as much.

"When are you going to go down?"

Never, if you would just keep your arms around me like that. "I don't know. I'll hop on a standby flight some time when it's convenient, hop one back up before the quarter starts."

"I think I'll make it back up for O-week." I'd been lying to Tanya about when the quarter starts just so I could have the fun of Orientation week.

"I'm at home until the Saturday before class." More time missed. I expected to not see her during that week though. Bella likes her family.

And then, despite that I wish we had longer, it's four, and Bella has to catch a train back to where she's staying. "Can I come wait with you?"

"I guess, if you want to spend the money." That's why I usually don't. No point to paying four bucks to stand with her for a few more minutes, usually.

"I feel like it today." She packed up her laptop. "Want me to carry that?"

"No." We walked out hand and hand.

* * *

She pretended not to hear. The whole time on the platform I was begging her to stay, to spend the night with me. Not out loud. Maybe it was cowardly not to say it out loud, but she heard it anyway.

And I pretended not to have been rejected, as I held her just a little too long before she got on the el.

**Story recommendations:**

**Queen of Hearts, by AliiceMariie**

**The Cassington Scholar, by Enitharmon**

**I haven't finished either of these, but they have nice openings.**


	21. I Cannot

**Mrs. Bella Marie Cullen1901: Yeah, I worried about it a lot.**

**Emma Fried: I gave it a look. Why do you format the chapters like that?**

**CullenLove678: Feelings like what? Like an instantaneous trust that makes me love sleeping with my arms around her? I mean, the way I acted in the previous chapter was only different from the rest of the story in that Bella didn't agree to stay with me.**

**Lady Dragona: But can we wait for that? Not just with her, with anyone?**

**Orangemonkey36: While we're wishing things about Tanya's family, I wish I had a Presidential pardon and some spare time.**

"So what's Jake like?" I wasn't very good at peacefully lying on the quads, soaking up the sun. I had to start talking, or play cards, or just get up and move around.

Bells was better at it. She certainly looked like a natural, with her hair fanned out over her bag. Maybe it was something that came more naturally to people from warmer climates. Laying out like that in Forks would have been asking for trouble. "He's a nice guy. But he lets people influence him too much."

"What's that mean?" Really, I just think of him as a pretty typical college guy. Maybe a little more studious, honestly.

"He just acts so differently based on who's around." She messed with her sunglasses for a moment. For some reason I found her hilarious looking with sunglasses on. Black on pale, untanned skin. "And he and his friends have that stupid 'guy code' that they all follow."

Ah, the guy code. I've never had much truck with it. Mostly because I despise guys. I mean, call me sexist, but why the hell would I want the presence or opinions of a bunch of men when I could have kinder, more visually appealing people around? "We never act like we're together when we're around people."

That was just unfathomable to me. If Bella were mine, people would know. There is little that I value in the world, but the things that I do I guard jealously. People have been threatened for asking me about Tanya, because I worry about them trying anything. "What's the point of making it official if you then keep it a secret?"

"We still know." I doubt she rolled her eyes like I might have right then. But those ridiculous glasses kept me from seeing.

* * *

Summer went too fast. Only little bits of time with Bells, and classes that usually take eleven weeks being crammed down your throat in three.

I loved the class schedule, and hated the social schedule. The Olympics provided a momentary distraction from having to explain, over and over again to the girl I loved that we were dating, how we met, who I was. But nothing really takes your mind off that. It would randomly pop up, and I would find myself on the phone with a terrified stranger as I walked down the street with people who considered me something of a friend, but who never got to hear any of my problems, never got an explanation about why I had to explain who I was, who I was talking to, or what was going on.

I wonder how many caught on anyway.

The end of class found my source of food and housing somewhat cut off. But it's easy to steal food around a college campus. Dining halls are huge and staffed with people who don't really care who is eating the food.

Still, at least once I was back visiting Tanya I could eat more.

"So how do you think you did?" That, of course, is my mother's first concern. Should I be offended? Her first worry is not, where are you staying, do you have enough food, are you healthy? No, she knows I always manage to land on my feet in those areas. Her question is if I've kept up my end of the bargain grade wise this time.

"I think I did fine. But I've thought that before." Honestly, I hate these phone calls. There was nothing good that could come out of them for me. Either I would meet expectations, for a moment, or, more likely, I would fail to meet expectations.

She sighed at my answer. "I hope you did better this time. What are you doing now that classes ended?"

"Not a whole lot. I'm mostly trying to get a hold of the syllabus from my classes for next month to start reading for them." This was a lie. What I actually did was start planning a trip back to see Tanya, but I needed some cover so that she wouldn't be trying to get in touch with me a bunch. If my family did not believe me to be working, there would be consequences.

"And where are you staying?"

"At Tyler's. I emailed you the address." In fact, I was on Tyler's phone right now. He was pretty understanding about the phone that did not exist, and was willing to let me use his to talk to my family.

"I just hope you're making good choices, Ed." Good choices was the current mantra. If I just would make good choices, everything would be fine. Apparently I have quite the knack for bad choices.

"I will, Mom." We just won't agree about what they are.

"Love you, Ed. Call us, ok?" Another theme.

"I will. And I love you too." I just don't respect you. "Bye."

I wandered back to where Tyler was, in the living room of his apartment.

"Here." He caught the tossed phone easily enough.

"Anything interesting?"

"Nah, you know. The usual." He nodded, as if that meant anything. "You wanna play some Left 4 Dead?"

* * *

Bella had been gone for a while. Gone without a real good bye either. We sucked at those. Her absence didn't eliminate all the charm of Chicago, but it got rid of a lot. So when I was flying back to Forks, it wasn't that bad.

Ha, flying to Forks. What a joke. I was flying back to Seattle, and Tanya was picking me up from there.

This whole thing was a dumb plan. Forks wasn't big enough. There was no way I could manage to avoid my family for two weeks. Was there? Maybe we could find some other place to hide out. There was no way that Tanya could just get off work like that, but god I wish she lived somewhere else. I was trying to keep this from my family and I was flying right back to their lair.

Also, I hated Frontier Airline, but their student standby program beat everything else price wise. As long as you were between 18 and 24, you could fly anywhere they went for $69 and the random waiting you would be forced into doing.

"Hi, how can help you?" Having been a cashier, I always felt bad for the people at the counter at the airport. No one is surlier than dissatisfied idiots who just invested a bunch of money in things they don't understand.

"Can I get a standby flight to Seatac?" It was too early for anything, but if you wanted to get a standby flight, you had to be willing to put in the time. And that time started at 5:30.

"Sure, can I see an ID?" I slapped it on the counter, and focused on keeping myself upright when I had just dragged myself out of bed, well, couch, at three in the morning to get to O'Hare on time.

* * *

"Ed!" I don't think most people find sweat pants and a t shirt appealing, but it was ten at night, and it was on Tanya. They actually probably would have on her. Especially if they knew some of the stuff we had done in outfits like that.

I dropped my bag, and quickly found myself involved in one of those PDA's that my family always frowned upon so heavily.

I didn't even care that she tasted a little like those damn clove cigarettes she liked so much. For this one moment, it was great to be home.

**Story Recommendations:**

**The Realization of a Lifetime by LoVefan4ever**

**The Devil You Know by Cesca Marie**

**Also, sorry about the story that just utterly disappeared in the previous rec's. Teach me not to read to the end before telling you all about them.**


	22. Panic?

**Totally Fucked, a song from Spring Awakening**

**There's a moment you know…you're fucked –  
Not an inch more room to self-destruct  
No more moves  
– oh yeah, the dead-end zone  
Man, you just can't call your soul your own**

****

But the thing that makes you really jump  
Is that the weirdest shit is still to come  
You can ask yourself: "Hey, what have I done?"  
You're just a fly – the little guys, they kill for fun

Man, you're fucked if you just freeze up  
Can't do that thing – that keeping still

But, you're fucked if you speak your mind

And you know – uh huh – you will

Yeah, you're fucked all right – and all for spite  
You can kiss your sorry ass goodbye  
Totally fucked – will they mess you up?  
Well you know they're gonna try

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

Disappear – yeah, well, you wanna try  
Wanna bundle up into some big ass lie  
Long enough for them to all just quit  
Long enough for you to get out of it

Yeah, you're fucked all right – and all for spite  
You can kiss your sorry ass goodbye  
Totally fucked – will they mess you up?  
Well you know they're gonna try

Yeah, you're fucked all right – and all for spite  
You can kiss your sorry ass goodbye  
Totally fucked – will they mess you up?  
Well you know they're gonna try

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah  
Blah blah blah blah blah  
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah  
Blah blah blah blah blah  
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah  
Blah blah blah blah blah  
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah  
Blah blah blah blah blah

**Totally fucked!**

Text, received by XXX-XXX-XXXX:

_Hey ed yr dad is up here looking for u_

_-Ty_


	23. Cannot go to the Ocean

**CullenLove678: You'd be surprised at some of the things I think. I tend to filter it out for you all. Otherwise, it would just be a senseless jumble of noise when I tried to put it on the page.**

**ParamorFanFrLif: Yeah, I am male. Shocking, right?**

**Lady Dragona: When are we allowed to start making people do what we want? And how much are we allowed to just subtly influence the way that they think?**

Did I commit fraud somehow? I had been hitting up relatives, applying for loans and scholarships and everything I could think of, and suddenly, citibank had approved my loan. With no cosigner. Honestly, with not strong improvement over the applications I had sent to them when I was 20, trying to pull almost the identical shit.

My grades hadn't been up to snuff over the summer. Apparently I had misunderstood having to get a 3.0. My A, B+, and C+ was not interpreted as a 3.0 from my family.

_"Ed, we agreed on nothing less than B's," my mother insisted. It was almost funny. She would say that, as if she thought it would change what she had told me before, or what I planned to do now._

_"No, you told me to make at least a 3.0. I made above that." It wasn't just about the grades anymore either. I was sick of everything. I spent time, money, and sanity I didn't have trying to help a hurt girl and got nothing but shit for it. I stuck to the deal we had made, and had the rug yanked out from under me. I was through with this._

_"Are you going to come home?"_

_"I'm going to fly back to Chicago right now. I'll find some other way to pay. I never wanted your money anyhow, if it's such a big deal." That was pointless. They had the money, but 50 grand a year was still a big deal. You didn't invest that in just anything. Certainly not something that, when caught in an elaborate lie, retorted that it didn't matter because a deal was a deal._

_"Ed, please, why-" And then I hung up. Sure, she had the number for the phone that did not exist now, but fuck if I was going to answer when I saw that it was her calling. If I wasn't good enough for this family, then they could just go fuck themselves. All I had ever asked for was to be allowed to live a life where I got to make my own choices. Where I was something other than another Cullen, with all the power, connections, and responsibilities that entailed. At this point, the cord was cut. They were of no more use to me, and I was not going to pretend to be of them anymore._

Tanya had been devastated that I had flown back to Chicago earlier than I had originally planned. I had cried right along with her, and prayed that she didn't have any more bad nights, like the one where she had just lain there, paralyzed in pain for an hour while _everyone_ insisted that I shouldn't do anything. Or that last night, before I flown back. God. Memory problems were a bitch.

Perhaps I had just a little of that old magic left. Just enough that plowing straight ahead with all the paperwork for Chicago had made the ability to attend and pay for it materialize. The interest rate was horrific, but what did I care? I don't like things anyway, so I might as well splurge on my education. Blow my money on a fancy degree rather than a fast car.

Even with that settled, I had still in a bit of a financial crisis. Sure, I had a place to sleep, for now, but Tyler didn't seem to stock the fridge very well in his sublet.

Fortunately, I would not have this be an issue for much longer. Orientation week, with it's free food galore and tons of new faces in the dining hall, was wrapping up. Soon, I would actually be on the dining plan again. I would be able to go get my meager possessions out of the basement in Pierce Tower, and sleep in a real bed. After spending weeks on a couch, that bed was going to seem damn luxurious.

The new first years were... ok, I guess.

"Hey, Ed," called one of the first years in the lounge. What was his name? Alex? Something like that. I ducked down the stairs into the main part of the lounge where everyone was hanging out. "Come play with us."

"What are you playing?"

Alex, if that was his name, smiled as I walked towards him. "Dodgeball!"

Alex was a big guy, my height, but plainly in better shape. With about six feet between us, there wasn't very much time to react to the tennis ball he had launched at my chest.

I knocked it out of the way. "You know, my brother does that to me all the time. But he's twelve."

Five more feet and I could have caught that sucker. "I'm about that mature."

"What are you guys actually planning on doing tonight?" Should I stay here and hang out with the people who would be populating the halls in the future?

"Disorientation party at Alpha Sig." Nope. Video games and sleep it was. Honestly, it seemed like every year, the students go less and less Uchicagoy and more and more mainstream. I'm sure every generation felt that way about the ones that followed after it, but that didn't make me not feel it.

Still, tomorrow would bring the people I would want to see. Bring on the sun.

* * *

Saturday. Move in day for all the returning students.

And one of the few Saturdays that I was up before nine.

When a certain black haired midget arrived from her early morning flight trying to beat the rush of people moving stuff, I was already lounging around the uncomfortable couches in the common room.

"Hey," I offered, looking up at her for once. Bags were hitting the floor at this point. Bags that were close to Alice's size, honestly.

"Stand up!" I rolled off the couch. Usually, I would just be contrary, but I was really tired.

Quick hands also let you get your arms out of the way of sudden hugs, otherwise mine would have been pinned to my side. From the way she was pressed against me, it was probably good that she didn't have a chance to get a running start.

"I missed you too." She finally let go at my words.

"You made it back. I was worried, after everything with your family, and... well, everything." Everything was right. I was a little surprised to have made it myself. But only when I would sit back and take stock of everything that had happened.

I just smiled at having made it back, and seeing my friend again. Snide comments are not always called for.

"Do you need any help getting stuff out of storage?"

"No," offered a small, gray haired woman still stuck in the elevator room. She was standing by one of the huge wheeled tub, one of the recent additions to help us all move in. The school used to just provide a certain amount of carts. Now they put what were essentially plastic dumpsters on wheels and let us pile stuff into those.

"Oh!" Alice jumped slightly. "Ed, this is my mom, Anita. Anita, Ed."

We couldn't really shake hands, due to the random stuff transporter that was in the way, but we waved cheerfully. "Nice to meet you, ma'am."

"It's good to meet Alice's friends."

"Come help me set stuff up." Alice grabbed my arm and started pulling me in the wake of her stuff. I would have felt pretty awkward if I had just invited myself into her room with her family there. Good thing she had thought to extend an invite. I took one of the body bags that Alice had been carrying, so that at least I contributed something.

We quickly got down to unpacking. I volunteered to put together some IKEA shelf thing she had, rather than to help put anything away. We had a kind of awkward, half conversation while her mom was there, talking about what we planned to do with our lives, our majors, places we had traveled. You know, the sort of parent safe small talk that you most certainly already know about your friends.

Fortunately, her mom decided to go get some sort of sticky tac or something from the store after a moment.

"So what did I miss, Al?"

"I don't know... I mean, it's all too much to tell, really."

So I decided to narrow it down. "What ever happened to that Ben kid that you were seeing?"

Alice had started dating someone as my time at Chicago had been coming to a close. In fact, their occasional accidental PDA had been hilariously saccharine, kind of like watching Pushing Daisies.

"He was more into the idea of me than actually me." She was a little wistful when she said it.

"And you weren't more into the idea of dating than you were into him?"

"Why would that be a good reason to be dating him?"

"Touche." She started putting piles of clothes in different parts of her closet.

"And Tanya?"

"Ehguhhh... I... we broke up?" I flopped down on the bed that wasn't covered in her clothes.

"So are you going to date other people?"

"No." I wasn't really the kind of person who dated. I had dated exactly one person, Tanya. I had never pursued anyone else, and frankly, hadn't cared about anyone who might or might not have been pursuing me. I wasn't going to just start dating again right after her. I loved her.

She hummed a little. "Is she?"

I glared at the ceiling. "I don't know."

That was a lie. Tanya wasn't going to start dating. Drinking maybe, but dating, no. She was going to sit around waiting for me to come back and save her, like I had promised I would.

And she was still going to lean on me, talk to me all the time. She needed me. I groaned, curling up, though keeping my shoes of the bed.

"Do you need any help getting your stuff out of storage?" Alice asked.

"No, I don't care about it. I'll get it all later." I blindly waved away any help. My friends had put all my possessions in storage in the first place. It had also cost me all my spare building keys, but still, they didn't need to be dragging my stuff around some more.

"Do you want to go out to eat? 'Nita will probably pay."

"You call her by her first name?"

"You call some of your parents by their first names."

"I have four parents." But I suppose I could see her point. Plus, what did I care what she called her parents? "Where do you want to go eat?"

"Cedars?" I grimaced. Everyone at this whole school loved Mediterranean food more than me. But I wasn't going to pass up a free meal. "We can go somewhere else if you want."

"No, it's fine. When do you want to go?"

"Probably around 11 or so."

"Any idea when Bells gets in?"

"No. You probably know that better than me." I had all year. I shouldn't worry about seeing her immediately. She lived down the hall, after all.

Still, part of me wanted to wait.

**Recommendations:**

**Go read You Never Know by enchanted-mind. Right now. Even if this is no longer the most recent chapter in my story. Just stop and go read You Never Know.**


	24. At Night

"Hi." We stood there in the common room, looking at each other.

"Hi," she said back.

"Need any help moving stuff?" Bella had arrived at the dorm while the Brandons and I had lunched.

"No. I got most of it already." Usually, when I think about people, there's no mental image attached to it. I rarely ever remember what people look like. But her I had remembered. She looked like I had pictured her. But something was different. I couldn't quite place it. Maybe in the way she moved.

We stood there awkwardly for a moment. "Where's Jake living this year?"

"He's got an apartment on Ingleside."

Last year, people had wondered if Bella and I were dating. I wonder if people this year would think we had broken up.

* * *

All day, we had danced around, careful not to appear to close. Night came though, and with it freedom from anyone who might think things, or obligation to be places. Soon it was just Bella, Alice, and me, hanging out in their room.

Our room, really. This year, I had a roommate, and they had a room. It simply made sense that we'd pretty much stay in their room. Mine would practically serve as storage.

"Did you ever get _your_ stuff out of storage, Ed?" Apparently Alice had noticed that I had never bothered to look for the possessions that they had packed up last year for me.

"No, I'll get it some other day. The storage room closed by now." Also, I didn't care about any of my stuff. Not until I got food. Then I might want my mini fridge.

"Are you going to stay here?" Alice and I were assuming that the other person was making the right facial expressions this whole time. She was on her bed, while I was sprawled out on the floor. Both of us were actually facing the ceiling. Busier ceiling than usual. Alice had put some starry paper and a little sheet music on it (Ok, _I _had. But it was her paper and tape and idea. Just my ability to reach the ceiling).

"Is there some reason I can't?" So forward of me, I know. But honestly, it wasn't like anything had changed, that-

Bella got up from her bed, and nearly tripping over me in her haste to get out of the room.

Now I sat up to read Alice. "What was that?"

No idea from Alice. Even if I could guess what it was.

I caught up with Bella pretty quickly. "Hey, what's the matter?"

Instead of answering, she ducked into the tiny music room. Barely enough space for the piano and two love seats in it, but its walls, with the crumbling sound proofing, provided a little privacy.

"Hey, Bella-"

"You can't sleep with me anymore."

The door hadn't even shut yet. I hurried it along with a blow from my heel, glad to hear the metallic snick as it did. "I can't."

"No." She wasn't looking at me, even as she turned around and sat on the comfier sofa. And I just stood.

"Can I still sleep in your room, or should I quit doing that too?" This she didn't answer out loud. Just in thoughts, just in the line of her body. Sure, who am I too stop you mixed with of course, I don't want you away from me.

"Remember when we were talking about this before I came back up?" She remembered the conversation I meant, of course. Bella had a much better memory than I do. "When I joked how it would be ungentlemanly of me to sleep in your bed, and so I would just sleep on the floor every night? Remember how you said then you'd sleep on the floor too, if I wouldn't sleep in your bed with you?"

I walked out. I knew I shouldn't have said that. It was me being bitchy and letting my temper get away from me.

Fuck.

"Sorry," chased after me out of the music room, but I think I managed to outrun any sincere apologies.

The problem being that I still didn't have any of my stuff out of storage. And I still did want to sleep in their room. Stupid gender policies not letting my actual friends be my roommates.

I snapped my phone open as it started vibrating. "Hi Tanya."

* * *

"Are you just sleeping on the floor?" This seemed a very perplexing situation for Alice.

"Yes." It didn't bother me at all. When I was growing up I had slept on the floor plenty of times. Me and my siblings would always room together after scary movies or if there were guests staying over. I always picked a spot in the dead middle of the group so that the others would get stumbled upon by the monsters first, and this area never had beds.

"Why?"

"Ask your roommate." Because now I had to sound like I was some annoyed divorcee. Alice looked a little flustered for a moment, but managed to recover quickly enough. And of course, Bella wasn't actually around to ask at that moment.

"Do you need a sleeping bag?"

"No."

"Do you want to use mine?" I smiled at that. Most people would take it to mean that I had a sleeping bag to use. Alice correctly knew that my response was the exact literal interpretation. No, I didn't _need _a sleeping bag.

"Sure, why not?" Maybe I was just going to spend this week pretending that I didn't care about anything that happened to me. I'd cruise along, stoic and unaffected by the fact that I had to explain to Tanya who I was at least once a day, by this not quite abandonment by Bella.

"It's up in my closet." Sure enough, a sleeping bag was rolled tightly up there on the top shelf, in one of those "convenient" bags that are not quite wide enough to actually get a sleeping bag into. The sleeping bag was light blue, and it seemed to puff up as soon as I pulled it out.

But even though the sleeping bag was more inviting than the floor had been, I didn't feel like sleeping. Alice always seemed to go to bed so early to me. I felt like doing something. Anything.

I ended up playing super smash brothers, and spades, and hanging out a bit with all the first years. Then playing smash some more.

I think it was after five when I finally bothered to get ready for bed. Alice and Bella had left their door unlocked for me, and I hoped I wouldn't wake them when I went to sleep. I turned the know slowly, and held it as the door slowly shut. A slight tap from the door was the only real noise I made closing it.

And then I had to unzip the sleeping bag. Things I would have to remember to do before I was trying to be quiet in the future.

Still, this seemed to me to be where I belonged. I fell asleep quick, and I didn't dream.

* * *

At some point when it was lighter, people started walking around me. I could feel their feet brushing against my sleeping bag, which was slightly curled up, since I tossed and turned a bit.

There was some talking, quiet, trying not to wake me. I heard what they said, but it disappeared later, like I'm told dreams do for normal people. Eventually, soft hand touched me and helped me move onto a bed, where I curled around something that I didn't need to be fully awake or open my eyes to know was Bella. I must have opened my eyes for a moment, because I knew she was awake, already on her laptop. But I wasn't, and I quickly drifted back to sleep on her bed.

* * *

There wasn't a cloud in the sky when I finally woke up, and the sunlight streamed in, brightening the room much better than the shitty lights we had. I was all alone in bed when I woke up. But at least I had a clear idea of what the rules were. Apparently I could sleep in Bella's bed. Just not with Bella sleeping there also.

Well, rules are rules.

**Replies from Edward, moved to the end of the chapter now.**

**So, wow. Been a while since I was on here, hasn't it? Life's been a little hectic...**

**You know what. Not hectic enough that I couldn't write. For example, I was just at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. If I can do that I can write. I just haven't been. I apologize for nothing. Nothing, you hear?**

**Man, fun rally though.**

**Lady Dragona: I have a hard time deciding what is acceptable influence and what is not. If, for example, I can make people think something just by thinking it myself, or some other influence that _shouldn't _influence people, but does, how would that fit in to it? I cannot find a good standard on when it is acceptable to influence, and when influence becomes control.**

**Alice Hermione: I like the know it all name you've got there. You picked the worst possible time to get hooked on this story though, didn't you?**

**CullenLove678: I should totally blow your mind about the way that this whole Bella and Edward tale ends. I mean, after this story that you are reading, life keeps going. I'll leave it up to Bella.**

**Bells, should I tell people about what's happening in real life these days? Or this person?**

**Alice: Would it be weird reading you and your family if I told your family about this story too?**

**ParamorFanFrLif: I'm twenty three. And I have not kept up with your story, though I did leave a review or two, right?**

**and the new review is not on fanfic at all. It's to go read "The Adventures of Dr. McNinja."**


	25. Lullabies

"Ed." Nope.

"Ed." No. Leave me alone.

"Edward!" I sat up finally.

"What?" I asked. I was still on the floor, even though light was streaming in through the window of Bella and Alice's room. I guess I was sleeping more heavily than usual, since most of the time when Bella left for class I would move to her bed.

Even if I wasn't in someone's bed, I had been serious when we had all talked about sharing a room. Even if things changed, I still wanted to be with my friends.

Plus, I had tried to sleep in my own bed in the two weeks since the quarter started. It was just that I started seeing things. I couldn't quite tell what it was, there was a lot of noise and movement, and then it would kind of come to rest with me looking up at this doorway, a white doorway. It was the door to Tanya's room, except that instead of the way that it had looked last time, there was this splash of red on it.

And it kept happening, every time I laid down in my own bed.

Plus, my roommate was a complete mess, leaving food all over his side of the room, and I couldn't find any of the bedding that everyone was supposed to have put in storage for me last year. I couldn't find the box it was supposed to be in either, so I was down a bed stand and some posters too, along with whatever other random crap had gotten thrown into that box.

So when I was finally turning in for the night (read: had finally convinced Tanya to turn in for the night and was pretty sure that she wasn't going to be calling anymore that day) I would slip into their room. Despite the fact that the floor was perfectly acceptable for sleeping on, after Bella would get up in the morning, I would move to her bed. Or if she just stayed at Jake's I would sleep in it the whole night. And a huge chunk of the day.

What can I say, she had great taste in comforters.

"Ed, we want to talk to you." We, even though it was just Alice talking. Bella and Alice were both there. Maybe it was still early? Or maybe it was just super late.

"Ok," I waved at them. They were sitting on Bella's bed.

Alice looked at Bella, who shook her head. "Ed..."

"Is this an intervention?" Neither of them looked like they wanted to start the conversation, so I guess it fell to me.

"I guess, if you want to call it that." Bella was still not saying anything.

"Oh boy." How else are you supposed to react. "I love interventions."

"When was the last time you went to class?" I looked at Alice when she spoke, but back and forth between them once she had finished.

They both had pained expressions on. "Hmmm... let me see... yesterday."

"You were asleep when I left for my ten thirty class," pointed out Alice.

"I have afternoon classes, you guys." This was not quite true. I did have two morning classes. Analysis in R^n and Statistics. One of which I actually probably needed to go to. They didn't look quite like they believed me anyhow.

"Ed," Alice glanced at Bella again. "_We _don't think you should sleep in here."

And what was that supposed to accomplish? Where was I supposed to go anyway? Away from them? They were... all I had.

"Ok," I said. "Am I still allowed in the room?"

"Yes?" said Alice. Neither of them had really planned how this part of the conversation was supposed to go. "Just... maybe not when neither of us are here?"

"Ok." I stood up, while Alice kept talking.

"Ed, you always stay up super late and then never get up. You never do anything and your sleep schedule is-" I walked to the door, opening it while she tried to get in her explanation.

"Alice," I cut her off, standing there in the doorway. "Do you expect my sleep schedule to improve by taking away the only place I would want to sleep?"

* * *

"Ed?" Bella caught up to me in the music room later. Guess what I was doing? Dozing.

"What?" I asked. Too shortly. She might think that I believed her a traitor and a liar for throwing me out of her room, that I might be upset with her or even hate her for that betrayal.

"Sorry," I said. "You startled me a little."

"Sorry," she echoed.

"Don't be. It's my fault, Bells. I know guys are just trying to help me." I ran my hand through my hair. No one noticed how I happened to also try to yank it out when I did that.

"Ed." Bella reached towards me, but I didn't react, just kept laying there in on the love seat.

"Are you ok, Ed?"

Now, for normal people, this is something you ask when you want them to tell you how they are. For us, it means something closer to, I can't read you at the moment, please tell me everything that is going on with you. Maybe through in a little bit of worrying about the person too. Are you ok is not something that Bella, Alice, and I tend to ask each other lightly.

"This'll be ok." I sat up as I spoke. "This is an opportunity, right? I'll start going to class again, start doing better. I'll clean up my act and set some sort of real schedule for talking to Tanya."

I finally reacted to her touch, using her hand to pull myself towards her. I planted my face against her next, shuddering slightly. "You guys will let me back in. This is a good thing. We'll all be ok and I'll get better."


	26. New song is Brick

I didn't get better.

Do things get better? Weeks went by, I think. Sometimes Bells was there. Sometimes we stayed up until four a.m., watching Bones or Angel or Dollhouse. If Tanya went to bed at a normal time. If Bells was in the dorm.

Months went by, and I had no idea. They must have past. I remember that Thanksgiving break, when I went back to see Tanya, hid from my family in my home town, in _my town._

I never hid from anything. But suddenly I rode in cars slumped so far in the seat I couldn't see over the dash. I only went out late at night or when I was sure my parents were somewhere else. I stayed in a house and watched her. Can you do anything else with someone when they might not remember who you are later on? We talked, we argued, we played games and did all the things we used to do. We fucked.

Things changed, that break. I understood what it meant to fuck someone. I'd never done it before. Every juvenile little quicky, every languid screw when the folks were out of town, every time before I had been making love. I hadn't really appreciated that there was a difference. But it's easier than I thought, fucking someone you don't want to. It's no more difficult than playing a game with an opponent you despise. Or a teammate you resent.

That's bullshit, of course. They're nothing alike.

That break happened, so time must have passed. But every day was the same. There was class, I think. There was meals, of course. I must have eaten. Video games and spades too.

And that same conversation. "When are you coming back, Ed?"

Coming back? To Forks? Why the hell would I want to go back to that fucking hell hole? Hiding from people when I_ had done nothing wrong! And dirtying myself in a way I never knew was possible! Lying to-_ "I don't know, Tan. I'm sure my family wants me to come home to. Maybe I'll have them buy me tickets."

Because I had no more money. Plane tickets back to Forks weren't cheap, and I didn't even pay attention to my money, buying food or going out whenever I wanted. How much money can a college student waste if he doesn't drink?

"Please come back, Ed. I really miss you."

"I know, I miss you too, love." I had no money. A college student can waste all but forty dollars in one quarter. Where there's a will there's a way.

One day I had a different conversation on the phone. "Alec."

"Hey, Ed, what's up?"

"Not much. Are you sticking around for winter break?" Everyone knows the answer to that. No one stays in Chicago for winter break.

"No. Why? You need a place to stay?"

"Yeah. Any way I-"

"You can crash at my place. Just come by to get the key before I leave town."

"Thanks."

"And clean up before you leave."

"Sure, no problem."

That was weird.

* * *

Weird. I mean, who just lets a college kid stay at their place unattended?

On the other hand, I don't drink. And the possibility of having a party didn't exist.

I logged onto one of the lab computers. My charger was broken. Again.

Still, I suppose I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. I had a place to stay this winter, if everything else fell apart.

The todo list now consisted of two things:

Find a way to go home and see Tanya. And find a way to avoid going home to see Tanya.

Yay me.

* * *

On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 9:10 AM, Rosalie Hale ***** wrote:

Ed! Long time no chat. Are you still in Chicago?

(PS Get gmail)

* * *

On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 6:34 PM Ed C ***** wrote:

Rose? Long time no chat? What has it been? Five years? How are you? Where are you? Smith or something?

(Get in touch. Maybe I'll consider something.)

* * *

I was feeling surreal at dinner.

"How has your day been, Bells?" I slid into my chair with renewed vigor. Weird shit should just drop out of no where on me. Weird shit is where I live.

"Bio-midterm." Yes, a tray two thirds full of jello was just placed next to you, Bells. "Did you get enough?"

"There's always room for more." She waited for me to continue. I was obviously to peppy. "Also, an old friend dropped me an email out of nowhere and Alec said I can spend winter break at his place."

"Did you tell Tanya?" Always the realist, aren't you?

"Today, I care about nothing, I tell you. Nothing!" I slurped down a bowl of jello. They came in tiny little bowls, barely able to hold four cubes of jello, and I was in no mood for silverware.

"That's gross."

"Deal with it." I slurped another. "An old friend of mine emailed me."

"Oh, who?"

"Rosalie Hale."

"Should I know her?" Only if you were weirdly into beauty pageants. Rose, as it turned out, had placed third in Miss Massachusetts. We had been friends starting in middle school. Sophomore year of high school, her father offered a tenure track position at a university in Kentucky, and she got shipped across the country away. She kept in touch, a bit, but as I lost contact with everyone from home, she had slipped away too.

"No, I never really talked to her. She was just on a list of old friends that I promised to hold on to forever and then lost." I loudly slurped another bowl.

"Well sounds- Oh my god, cut that out. Were there no spoons?"

"There is no spoon."

"Jesus, take mine."

**Comments from Edward:**

**So, once again, I take forever to update and then give you all a short, poorly written chapter.**

**But I don't care. My country is going to hell in a handbasket even more than usual and every state I love is being over run by despicable vermin. It's two something in the morning and I am pining after things lost and wishing I had more pickles to eat.**

**On a more serious note, I artificially inflated my friend's ranking in that pageant. But she was top ten. I'll give more hints if you want to cyber stalk her/root for her in the new pageant she's in this year. I swear she's on the level, even if I mock her relentlessly for doing beauty pageants.**

**I mean, really? Pageants? She can't be serious, right? (I've had three years to adjust and I still think it's some sort of joke.)**

**Recommendations for this update are:**

** "Cultures of War," by John W. Dower. If it doesn't make you want to open a congressional investigation against the whole Bush administration, then you better have already wanted to open said investigation.**

**"Hey Rube," by Hunter S. Thompson. Because really, you poor sots will see the bats soon enough.**


	27. Slowly

I had packed before sending Bells on the bus. That 55 route, right to Midway, was incredibly convenient if you needed to skip town from Uchicago.

In other words, never convenient for me.

Bells was gone. Alice was gone. It was nearly eleven thirty. I needed to sign out by noon, or face the fines for late check out. Late check out. They wanted to make sure you never got confused. Never started to think you were home when you were staying in the dorms.

Even if it was all you had anymore.

It didn't take long to grab my bags. I had my carry on sized rolling blue suit case, and the black messenger bag that always carried my laptop. My currently disabled laptop.

Signing out at the front desk took even less time, and then I was just dragging a wheeled suitcase through the snow down 55th street. Suitcase wheels aren't terribly effective in snow. The powder gets caught up in the wheel, keeping them from spinning. The little plastic cylinders might have helped a bit, potentially forming temporary skis, but It didn't last. Part way down each block, I'd keep finding myself dragging a big pile of snow.

And it was a few blocks to Alec's apartment. He lived past the metra, right above Thai fifty five. In the summer, the smell of pad thai and a hint of fish came drifting up, but in winter everything got muted.

It was on the top floor, four flights up. Four bedroom, one bath, and every roommate was guys.

In terms of cleanliness, it was hardly ideal.

And what the fuck was up with this fridge? An onion and ketchup? Who the fuck doesn't even have mayonnaise? Also, there were eight pints of chocolate ice cream in the freezer. No food but an onion and ice cream. I don't even like ice cream.

A trip to the bank earlier showed that I had twenty four dollars and fifty three cents. It was possible to stretch that out farther, if I used the credit card setting on my check card over the weekend. But that would hurt me in the future, when those charges started my checking account impersonating a super ball.

The way my luck was going, that check bouncing would finally hit me on New Year's Eve. Normally that wouldn't be a problem, but I'd prefer to not have my card getting rejected when I had guests.

Rose, it turned out, was planning a road trip to Chicago for New Year's. She might have been bringing two more people I couldn't care less about, but it had been so long since I saw her that I didn't care if random losers from my past in Forks came too.

I'd need to get to the store. But Walgreens was close, and I was starving.

Ice cream then.

I don't even like ice cream.

* * *

Ninety nine cents for a loaf of bread. Ninety nine cents for a dozen eggs. Two dollars for a pack of hotdogs.

The bread might have been wonder bread, but I would take it. Same with medium eggs. It wasn't even really about getting enough food. I just had to fool myself into thinking that I had eaten sometime that day. An egg, a bit of bread. Maybe a hot dog and some of Alec's ice cream. I wouldn't need much.

I grabbed two of each of the items I had been considering and headed to check out. It came to only a tad over six dollars, but only because some shady character had stuck the second pack of hotdogs in his coat rather than putting it on the check out counter.

Two loaves of white bread, two dozen medium eggs, sixteen hot dogs, and some ice cream.

At least as Christmas approached, I'd be able to find church pot lucks to go to.

This winter break was going to be just awesome.

* * *

A slightly different phone call.

I call her this time. Tanya worries that I don't like her calling so much, that she is ruining my chances at having fun, at having a normal social life.

"Eddy!" Happy to hear from me. Did that make this worse.

"Hi, Tan."

"I was just thinking about you."

"Only now? Because I think about you all the time." It failed to induce the happiness that her voice had, but the statement was true enough.

"I was thinking about what we would do when you were he-"

"I don't think I can make it back for break, Tan." Don't tell me a list of things you want. About everything you dream of doing when I come home.

"Whuh- why not?" A reasonable question. Why aren't I there? She would pay. My parents would probably pay. And god, she needed me there. "Is it my fault?"

"No, Tan, no. Of course not. I just, neither of us have any money, and if I went home and my parents knew, they'd want me to visit them. But why come home if I'm not seeing you? And it would just kill my mother if I came home on Christmas and didn't see her." Just like this is killing you.

"Ed, do you still love me?"

"Of course I love you! Only ever you!"

"Why did you lie to me?"

"I didn't lie to you. I tried to find a way down. I've been trying. I'm still trying! I love you!"

When did she start crying? Was she crying the whole time? Is she always crying? "I just really needed to see you."

"I know, I need to see you too. I miss you so much, love. I need you."

"Will you call me? Still?"

"Of course, Tanya. I don't know if-" But she isn't there anymore.

"It isn't a goddamn lie!" I throw the phone into the couch. Cushions bounce it, clattering onto the floor. "Fuck."

**Comments from Edward:**

**Alice: That previous chapter sucked. And if you were an honest friend, you would have said, Ed, take out this side part about Rose. Even if it happened, it is largely unimportant to the story. I'm just kidding, of course. Everyone should have said that. Not just you. Glad you still give my stuff a look after I left it on the shelf so long.**

**Lady Dragona: Apparently it sucks to be everyone, at some point.**

**Recommendations: This update's recommendation is to get that Hunger Games bullshit out of my face. If you want that story line, go read Battle Royale. If you're logic is that you're young and Hunger Games is some sort of YA lit, go read Animorphs.**


	28. It's Not Me

I have no recollection of what Christmas was like as a child.

I'm sure it was good. That my siblings and I had a great time. That my parents were loving, that the presents were wonderful, that the food was plentiful and delicious.

I do remember that I didn't like having to choose between divorced parents. Once I was at a celebration, everything was great, but I remember hating the choice of which house to actually be at for Christmas eve.

It was always busy. I remember that we had to rush from home, to church, to my great aunt Carole, to my uncle Bert's, picking up grandma, switching to the other parent. It was never ending, and at the end of it, stuff with food, you'd just drop off exhausted.

We never stopped. Laying on a couch in south Chicago, watching snow fall so heavy that it calling it day was just wrong, it felt like the first time I had ever stopped moving.

This is what people mean when they talk about a white Christmas. It isn't just the snow, that shit we used to struggle through all the time in Forks on Christmas. It was this quiet, this covering of noise and harsh light and the trapping of everyone in whatever place they had felt safe, comfortable sleeping.

Yesterday I went to church. It was nondenominational. I think the pastor and I were both Methodists, but that might have been it. They had a meal before the service, bread and salad and chicken. I was supposed to bring something to contribute to it, but I didn't. No one cared.

I didn't listen to the sermon. Instead I thought about another sermon I had heard before. The part of the bible it dealt with had Jesus tell people that if they were presenting an offering in the temple, and realized that they had a quarrel with their brother, they should leave the offering where it was and immediately go make peace and forgive their brother. If you were feuding, then all of your offerings meant nothing.

My own family was in church then, or would be soon. They'd go into our church, the church my family has gone to for generations. How much were they thinking about me while there? Did they need an extra usher, since the men in my family usually filled out the ranks during crowded services?

The was no point to this. I had lied to my family, and when caught, had decided to take it out on them. Was I five? It had been nearly half a year since I had spoken to anyone in my family. I wasn't accomplishing anything by it. I was hurting my family, and I didn't get anything. There was no ransom, no demands of any kind. I simply wanted them to hurt.

I didn't think that I was making any sacrifice to God, that I needed a clean slate with my family for. That wasn't even the point. The point is that first and foremost, live a good life, and do no wrong. Do not hurt your parents for no reason, not if you have the choice.

But why don't things have purpose? Why call them today, if I wouldn't call them yesterday? Right now, when I was poor and doing shitty in school, when I was nothing? I wouldn't go crawling back to them. Couldn't I hold off until I managed to come back like I always did, a winner?

Pride was no reason to keep hurting anyone but myself.

I wondered if there were presents for me back home. Did my younger siblings still get me things? Did my parents? Would they just keep it all in a box? Or have it out as part of a display? A memorial, to the one with pride and wasted potential.

Today, eating extra was ok. On Christmas day, even someone with no money and no prospects can eat more. Three hot dogs today, and all the ice cream one human can stand.

For one day I will not be hungry.

Christmas day kept me away from everything. My laptop is out of commission, and the computer labs are all closed for the holiday. Even Crerar. Except for the phone I was totally cut off.

That phone had been blissfully silent today. No family had tried to call, like they had on some other holidays. And Tanya had not called either. Of course, in the case of Tanya, that meant that she was worried that I didn't love her anymore, that her calling annoyed me, that I was staying in Chicago because I never wanted to see her again.

I picked up my phone.

Calling it my phone is odd. The phone that does not exist, I had never paid for it. It hadn't been purchased for me. It was a left over, a cast off that was on a large plan. It was paid for by people I loathed, but who were apparently pragmatic enough to want to not have to pay for Tanya calling me if she didn't have unlimited minutes to use.

I honestly never liked the way it folded in half, muffling the speaker so that it had quieter alarms and quieter rings. The joint struck me as structurally weaker than I would want any phone of mine to be.

Really, it was more her phone than mine.

I hit send. The only recent calls had been Tanya, even though I had given the number to Rose. After a few rings, the phone went to Tanya's voicemail, which was perpetually full. Same effect as mine, which was perpetually not set up.

I stuffed the phone into the cushions of the couch I had been sleeping on.

Today, not even the phone would get to me.

**Responses from Edward:**

**CullenLove678: to say that I had a will in this time of my life almost feels inaccurate. I don't know if I tried to do anything.**

**Lad yDragona: oh, I made it out. I even kept most of the pieces of me.**

**ConcreteAngel14: I find it somewhat funny that you find this deadly intolerable. Some stuff has been rearranged, but yeah, it's all real. At the end of the day though, there is much worse going on in the world than my lose of self.**

**What is it that you talked to people online about?**

**Reading recommendations: reaching back into the old favorites, how about any of the long form stuff by Daddy's Little Cannibal?**


	29. After Christmas

_Note: The magic should still work, right? The original point was to bring us together. And now, as I feel apart from everyone, why not just reach for the same tired old spell?_

_(****************)_

The guys at West Point have good taste. The girls at Smith, do not.

What guy wouldn't be into a thin, busty blond that was about my height when she put on heels, but still wore a dress about as long as one of my button down shirts? I'm sure Rose's boyfriend, some random cadet, had a good reason for not spending New Years Eve with her.

I am less sure that she had a reason for wearing leopard print.

At least this restaurant didn't card. I may not know, but Rose is still twenty for something like half a year.

"I'm the designated driver," I informed the waiter. This wasn't the type of place where you could get a coke, so I was planning on settling for water. But the waiter shuffled off before I even got to finish that order.

"Still not drinking?"

"Still not drinking." I expect it was tough to tell. Everyone, even goodie two shoes Rose, had started drinking in high school. Everyone but me. I never got the taste for the stuff. Plus, when I was in elementary school I had once lectured my next door neighbor on why he shouldn't be drinking, and I felt like it was more fun if I backed up the tough talk of the younger, tinier me.

"So what happened to the other two people who were supposed to be coming?"

"Ben decided he didn't want to make the drive, and Steph decided she'd rather spend New Years with Ben." One place on the table was currently taken by a teddy bear dressed in an army uniform.

"And him?"

"I don't know. I think we're about through." It made me laugh to be talking to someone about a relationship that I hadn't even know they were in. But that's what you get if you lose touch for five years.

Rose was always an important case study for me. I learned a lot from her. Rose helped me define love. She'd started dating my best friend freshman year of high school. Sophomore year, she'd had to move across the country when her father was offered a tenure track position.

Lots of people had "dated." But there were few people that I didn't consider beneath me. Rose was the first person I ever considered a peer who fell in love.

"You know, it's partially your fault I'm like this."

"Going to an incredibly prestigious college and spending New Years Eve alone with a gorgeous, intelligent blonde?" Rose supplied.

"Broke and too depressed to appreciate the New Years Eve festivities."

"Funny. I heard it was another girl who did that."

"Here you go," said the waiter. Rose got some sort of cloudy looking drink, and I got a glass with ice and a bottle of ginger ale. "I asked the bar what we had that wasn't alcoholic."

"Thanks," I said. "Good thing we picked this place instead of the blues bar."

"We're glad your here too. Happy New Years." The waiter made me think of a sociology reading, about how people prefer waitresses, except in fancy restaurants, where they prefer men. In this case, the restaurant had settled with a small, bald, effeminate guy. Kept all their bases covered.

"To New Years." I said, holding up the bottle.

"We should make a pact not to fall in love anymore," Rose proposed.

"What a mature New Years resolution. Is this the sort of thing that gets inspired by watching _Sex in the City_?"

"It's a good show."

"It's a good show if you're middle aged." I made a face as I actually took a swig of the ginger ale. "Still better than alcohol."

"How did I make you like this?" She put down her glass and struck a pose. "Busy pining after what you can't have?"

"I learned it from you. No one did a better depressed pining than when you moved." The glass of the ginger ale bottle looked sort of frosted.

"They told you about that, huh?" I heard her gulp down more of whatever the hell she'd ordered. "Not my finest hour. And then he slept with my best friend."

"You had broken up, technically."

"You shouldn't think of me as an example."

"Isn't that the point of all your Miss America Competitions? To be an example, an inspiration to the rest of us mere mortals?"

"You don't have to be a dick about it. The organization does a lot of good work, gives millions in scholarships for young women-"

"And helped you become more comfortable with yourself and all that jazz." It would take more than the participation of someone I nominally respected to get me to believe that beauty pageants served any sort of purpose other than demeaning women and pissing me off. "You know, I think this is the first New Years I've ever spent somewhere of my own choosing."

"You're always so upbeat."

"Says the girl vowing never to fall in love again. We should do this every New Years." I glanced around. "Is there any clock in this place?"

We both pulled out phones, both too impatient to wait ask the other. 12:04 am.

The rest of the room seemed to figure out the same thing as we did.

"Ten!" called out one table, apparently deciding that the actual time was less important than the ritual.

"Nine!"

"Eight!"

"Seven!" More people joined in.

"Six!" Rose and I both shouted along. I poured some of the ginger ale into my glass. Better for toasting with.

"Five!"

"Four!"

"Three!"

"Two!"

"One!"

"Happy new years!"

"Should we sing along?" I asked, as people began singing _Auld Lang Syne._

"Do you even know the words?"

"Of course I do. _Should old acquaintance be forgot,  
and never called to mind..."_

"And the next line?"

"Ok, I guess I don't know all the words."

"Don't try to bluff me, Ed. Come on, let's get out of here."

"You don't want to buy me something off the cheese menu?"

"I'll buy you something tomorrow. We'll go get _dim sum._"

_Author's note: Sorry for the short update. Just felt like messing about with this again._


End file.
